Island WSW of Kauai / FRI 3-8-19 / 1912 Olympics locale / Song that hip hop rivalry might inspire / President until 2011 / W.W.E. legend John

Friday, March 8, 2019

Constructor: David Steinberg

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (I think—again, untimed in the comfy chair, just waking up)


THEME: none

Word of the Day: NIIHAU (54A: Island WSW of Kauai) —
Niʻihau (/ˈnh/Hawaiian[ˈniʔiˈhɐw]) is the westernmost and seventh largest inhabited island in Hawaiʻi. It is 17.5 miles (28.2 km) southwest of Kauaʻi across the Kaulakahi Channel. Its area is 69.5 square miles (180 km2).[3] Several intermittent playa lakes provide wetland habitats for the Hawaiian coot, the Hawaiian stilt, and the Hawaiian duck. The island is designated as critical habitat for Brighamia insignis, an endemic and endangered species of Hawaiian lobelioid. The United States Census Bureau defines Niʻihau and the neighboring island and State Seabird Sanctuary of Lehua as Census Tract 410 of Kauai County, Hawaii. Its 2000 census population was 160; Its 2010 censuspopulation was 170. (wikipedia)
• • •

Hey there, it's early-morning solving time again for me. Printed this baby out and sat down with my cup of green tea (coffee is gone ... Lent ... don't ask ...) and my clipboard and went at it. Very civilized way to solve, I must say. I can see the virtue in not trying to race the timer, I really can. I mean, I'm not going to stop racing the timer, because it's mostly fun, but early in the morning, such speeding feels more and more like trying to do something physically demanding, like sprinting or playing basketball, first thing in the morning, i.e. dangerous and bad. Gotta warm up. I'm probably fitter than I've ever been in my life, but still, 20-year-old me, who subsisted on cigarettes, diet coke, fried burritos, and irony, could've bounced out of bed and leaped down stairs and played tennis from a cold start and been fine, whereas 49-year-old-me, with his (relatively) "healthy lifestyle," has to shuffle in the morning to keep from tripping and dying and needs at least an hour before he can even move like something that doesn't seem undead. I just imagine Now Me, trying to will himself into a standing position, shouting at Bad-Choices Young Me as he runs off to the dining hall to eat six bowls of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, "Hey! ... Ya smug jerk! ... I can bench press ... more than you ... whipper ... snapper!" Anyway, where was I? Oh, this puzzle. The grid was great, I thought. Yeah, good stuff.


Alllll of my trouble was up top, and almost all of that was caused by the CULTURE part of RAVE CULTURE (17A: Phenomenon characterized by electronic dance music). You have a culture, now, do you? Well la-di-dah. What year is it? Are there still raves? That seems so sadly retro. Anyway, I had RAVE C- and quite confidently wrote in RAVE CONCERT, though even then I thought, "that seems pretty high-culture terminology for whatever raves are." The problem: I think of "phenomenon" as a discrete event, not some nebulous concept like a "culture." Defensible clue, sure, but ugh. And I'd read "The Shallows" by Nicholas CARR, and that worked with CONCERT, so yeah I got nice and stuck for a bit. But I was easily able to get going again in the NE, swung back around to the NW via VERA WANG, saw clearly I was dealing with some kind of "TV" at 7D: Product from Panasonic (HDTV), and figured it all out from there. After that, the only problem was having both JEWISH and JUDAIC before MOSAIC in MOSAIC LAW (27A: Source of rules for keeping kosher), and then not knowing NIIHAU at all. Given how ridiculously small it is (see Word of the Day, above), my ignorance here is not something I feel particularly bad about.


I had BUDS before PODS (1A: Things cotton pickers pick), something ending -ING before ON A DIET (2D: Slimming down), and nearly wrote in MEGALOPOLIS before deciding I should probably actually look at the clue for 51A: Condition whose first two letters are oddly appropriate (MEGALOMANIA). Speaking of not looking at clues, I feel like it happens more when I solve on paper. I think I can just see or feel the whole grid a bit better, so somehow my guesses are more confident. Never saw clues on SUSHI RICE or AFCNORTH, for instance. I feel about dead-tree solving the way I feel about dead-tree reading—I have a better sense of the whole and a greater sense of control and understanding when I'm dealing with paper than when I'm dealing with its digital counterpart. The screen limits my brain in a way, and I get disoriented, not having a tactile sense of a thing's parameters. It's much much more efficient for me to solve on screen, but it's not a superior experience.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. here is the greatest puzzle error of all time, or at least this year:


[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

134 comments:

Loren Muse Smith 6:55 AM  
This comment has been removed by the author.
Loren Muse Smith 6:56 AM  

Rex! Wow! I was so happy to read that you see the allure of leisurely solving on paper. You’re absolutely right about the fact that solving on paper affords you a better feel for the Jungle rather than just the Trees.

DISS TRACK was one I had never heard before. But yesterday when Sweet Home Alabama came on the radio, I wondered for the bajillionth time if Neil Young felt dissed. I just looked into this, and apparently it was all in good fun, and Neil was a good sport.

I was all set to be shown a cool new portmanteau for 17A. RAVE _ _. Something like ravelengths. When RAVE CULTURE fell, I was crestfallen. The only RAVE CULTURE I’m familiar with is the practice back in the ‘70s of letting your mom give you a RAVE home perm in order to avoid spending a ton of money at the salon. People – there are some things that you really should leave to the professionals. More than once, I sported what looked like a helmet of brunette cauliflower.

Speaking of cauliflower, I recently tried to make a batch of chirashizushi but instead of SUSHI RICE, I substituted cauliflower rice. Bitter disappointment. That s&%$ ain’t foolin’ nobody.

“Wimp” before WUSS.

MEGALOMANIA crosses I LUCKED OUT. Sigh.

With words like sell and cell, I’m wondering who got to decide it was the C that is silent in “miscellaneous” and not the S. Just throwing that out there.

From yesterday: @Sir Hillary, @Gypsyboom, @Z, @Jesse, @Frank Stein, @albatross shell, @Marie, @ jberg – I waded in to the microphone flap and posted it at the end of the thread last night.

Anonymous 7:00 AM  

I expected Rex to be all over Uncle BEN like white on rice.

Jay 7:04 AM  

I usually go to crossword fiend to get a perspective on a puzzle. Amy Reynaldo's insight is the best. She picked up on the problem with the 23 across clue. Rex completely missed it. My take as posted on Amy's sight was as follows.

"The clue for 23 Across was off in an unwittingly misleading way. By putting a question mark after it, you don’t look to answer the clue literally but rather look for the answer to be a play on words or a clever oddity. In this case, if the first “s” in miscellaneous were silent you would still pronounce it the same way as you would if the “c” were silent. However the “c” in miscellaneous as pronounced by many is literally silent. So putting the question mark after the clue means a literally silent “c” shouldn’t be the answer. Furthermore, I have heard many people pronounce the word miscellaneous with a very slight break or pause between the “mis” and the “cell”; resulting in neither a silent “s” nor a silent “c”.

QuasiMojo 7:07 AM  

I can’t imagine you Rex drinking a Diet Coke. Channeling Michael Milken or Karl Lagerfeld? I too prefer doing a paper version but at 3:50 or 4 bucks a pop I now do it online. I used to go to the library to do it but someone always got there before me. Plus I get up at 5 am everyday so I like the digital option before the stores open or the delivery boy comes. Oh, the puzzle!? I liked it. Steinberg has a certain zestiness in his work that amuses me and endears him to me but a lot of this is pretty weak clueing. I don’t care for these quotation sentiments that translate into dull fill. “I lucked out” or “ I just might.” If you were writing a play or a short story you’d delete these empty phrases. They don’t elicit excitement in a crossword either. And stuff like AFC NORTH is junk.

I don’t understand this rave culture at all. It’s a valid answer and yes a phenomenon but from my ancient perspective it seems the point of these exercises in group groping is to get high, get laid or kill many hours away from the parents. It rarely seems to be about “music.” Yes there is sound, which can be interesting, but there is no voice behind it, or underscoring it, and usually no lyrics to give it depth or purpose. Say what you will about the Woodstock generation, they did seem to care about more than mere sensation.

Thanks @susie Q!

TokyoRacer 7:08 AM  

I've ranted before about the use of proper nouns, but things are really getting out of hand. Pretty much every day, at least one-third of the clues are proper nouns - eg. 11 out of 33 for the acrosses. The other day HALF of the down clues were proper nouns, foreign words or non-words.
In the top middle we have an island, a movie, a fashion designer, a product, an author and Rave Culture, maybe that's one too, I don't know. With a country and a president to the sides, not to mention a canton (?!) another product name, and...another product name. And then we've got Mosaic Law (sorry, but non-Jews do not know this) crossing...another name!
NY Times editors: this is not trivial pursuit!! It's a crossWORD puzzle, not a crossname puzzle. Seriously, I'm about to give up on the NY Times. Washington Post puzzle is good, you say?

jammon 7:09 AM  

First, it's a BOLL, not a POD.

And B, nobody has named a child PETUNIA since Porky Pig got a girlfriend.

Ricky 7:17 AM  

Hey, there's my tweet! Man, I was looking everywhere for my error; was screwing around with what else the I in WINGS or the C in CORKAGE could be for a while before I went to MUBARAK. That one Natick'd me, though that's more a result of Americacentrism at work. Glad y'all got a good laugh out of it.

Jamie C 7:27 AM  

Did anyone else plop down LEVITICUS for 27a? Fits nicely.

Anonymous 7:28 AM  

If everyone on this blog gave up the NYT crossword every time they threatened to, there would only be crickets left.

pabloinnh 7:42 AM  

Nice thorny Friday for me, as I have never made or heard a DISSTRACK or participated in the RAVECULTURE. NW put up a real fight, as I had lots of trouble seeing "intent" as an adjective. Fair enough.

Solving on paper is the way to go, IMHO. When I was teaching a friend used to run off the puzzle every from the NYT on the the school copier. Now I send it from my laptop to my home printer and hey presto there it is, which always amazes me. O brave new world, that has such devices in it...

Muchas gracias to DS for another fun effort. Always entertaining.

Birchbark 7:45 AM  

There's a short chapter in Moby Dick called "The Pipe," where Ahab sets said his MEGALOMANIA aside, stares out at the ship's wake for a while, and thinks it all over. It's a fine vignette, as is @Rex's reflection today on paper, Lent, and physical fitness in the slow decline of history.

I'd clue 17A "Mutual admiration society?"

amyyanni 7:49 AM  

Now, I love this. In the midst of it, might have been cursing lightly under my breath. CONAIR and SERRA side by each were tough for this non-thriller movie goer/east coaster. And while I know Zabar's, think of it more as a shop so arrogantly tossed in Sardi's at 40 down. That took a lot of reworking. Also had AERATE for poke holes in until AERATOR convinced me of that error. Pshew! Good challenges today.

SouthsideJohnny 7:50 AM  

Thanks to @TokyoRacer for doing a better job of articulating my exact sentiments - that there is way too much arcania and trivia in the NYT puzzles day-in and day-out. I also agree with Rex that the Washington Post is setting a much higher standard.

John H 7:51 AM  

I absolutely agree with jammon. Apologies to anyone who might be named Petunia, but that has got to be pretty rare. And cotton comes in a boll, not a pod.

"...when them cotton bolls gets rotten
you can't pick very much cotton..."

Irene 7:59 AM  

Rex, when you imagine talking to your younger self, look at Kenneth Koch's To My Twenties. It can break your heart.

Unknown 8:11 AM  

Had lAvA before HAHA. Which stemmed my flow down there. (Pardon the wise crack)

Joaquin 8:14 AM  

Interesting factoid of the day: The capital of Niihau is Natick.

Sir Hillary 8:17 AM  

It didn't put up much of a fight, but I'll take a fun grid like this every time.

The whole thing reminded me of my typical college day in ITHACA:
-- Wake up in my STY and shout "TGIF!" despite it being Monday.
-- Put on REM (if craving jangle and edginess) or perhaps Toto's "AFRICA" (if craving comfort and safety).
-- Eat WINGS left over from the night before, or maybe some CARBS like pizza crust (certainly not SUSHIRICE) or whatever's in the WINEFLASK.
-- Go grab and down a CASE of Mickey's Mean Green, Utica Club or some other vile upstate brew. Again, CARBS -- anything for a SUGARRUSH.
-- Engage fraternity brothers in SAGE debate, inevitably ending with sophisticated namecalling ("WUSS!" "ZERO!" "INFANT!").
-- Get my fake-badass rapper on, via no-lace ADIDAS and a DISSTRACK composed in the shower the day before.
-- Go to bed with renewed purpose, thinking "ILUCKEDOUT not to get academically suspended today. IJUSTMIGHT go ONADIET tomorrow, and finally do my IRONING."
-- Repeat the above cycle ANEW.

My daughters shamed me out of wearing "jorts" (jeans shorts) some years ago, although I think I still have a couple pairs. Anyway, this puzzle brought that portmanteau to mind, and I am now proposing that from here on, any long and boring bioPIC be referred to as a JEDGAR.

@LMS -- I drives me nuts that PIC and pike are...oh, never mind. ;)

Jstarrracewalker 8:26 AM  

Yep, knew boll was correct, sighed and sadly wrote in pod.

Anonymous 8:26 AM  

Can someone explain 8D? AGUE? I thought that was an old-fashioned term for an illness/fever. Can't find another definition.

kitshef 8:28 AM  

Yesterday I said you could get away with clues like “Hmm, sounds like a good idea” and “Whew! That was fortunate for me” when the puzzle is packed with fun, as yesterday’s was.

Today, conversely, with little else in the puzzle to enjoy, the awfulness of those clues really stands out. Makes me want to rake the puzzle with my Mosai Claw.

Felt like it was packed with proper names, but looking back it really isn’t. It’s just the relative obscurity of the PPP – CENA, SERRA, CARR, NIIHAU.

kitshef 8:29 AM  

@Jamie C - I did not put it in, but I sure thought about it.

Suzie Q 8:30 AM  

Well, this one certainly wasn't written with me in mind.
I guess it's just my megalomania showing.
Didn't Harry Potter have an Aunt Petunia?
Sugar rush was a cool answer but I was wondering if kiss should have a capital K. Are there other generic kisses not made by Hershey?
I love the word rootle. That's a new one for me but it describes perfectly what little piglets do.
Was that really Rex who wrote the review? Such rambling personal self-disclosure is not his usual style. I liked it.

Anonymous 8:31 AM  

Obama’s name is spelled Barack. Maybe MC Ehud, another crossword friendly former leader.

Sballan 8:33 AM  

Me. And I’m a rabbi.

Sballan 8:36 AM  

I did. And I’m a rabbi. Mosaic law? Thought it came from God.

Anonymous 8:54 AM  

Cotton picker and Uncle Ben. Right there across the top. Wow. For a throw away piece of filler like Pods (those laundry things that people were supposed to be eating, iPods, pea pods).

And yes @Rex, it's understandable that you'll slow down with things like terms like Rave Culture and Diss Track. It's ok.

Cassieopia 8:55 AM  

@anon 8:26 the phrase "had a fit of ague". A fit can be "a sudden violent attack of a disease especially when marked by convulsions..."

Definitely wanted bOll. Who picks a pod of cotton?

Suzie Q 8:58 AM  

P.S. So sad to hear about Alex Trebek.

Cassieopia 8:58 AM  

THETALMUD also fit, which was my ignorant first try for that answer.

Rube 9:00 AM  

6 decades as a Jew and I have never seen Mosaic Law cited as a source of Kashruth. Garbage answer ruining a good puzzle. The true answer is Halacha but if you want something that fits it is MASHGIACH. My guess is that Steinberg's real last name is O'Brien or Katamura or Patel.

Simone 9:02 AM  

I enjoyed this puzzle but feel strongly that nowhere is there a girl named Petunia.

Marvin Garden 9:03 AM  

Zabar’s is a “food emporium” according to its website. And they show a photo from 1945 that has its name on the entrance as a “super market.” Yes it has a deli section but having lived across from it in the 70s and 80s I can assure you no one in the neighborhood called it a delicatessen or a deli.

Anonymous 9:03 AM  

Rex, like so many others, I am super happy that you are feeling the benefits of a leisurely morning solve on paper and, in LMS's formulation, sensing the jungle before the trees. A night solve for me is unwinding from being jangled at my day job; a morning solve is lurching into motion, slowly waking up my brain, enjoying all the free associations that get jogged by the clues. Same as you I am wiser and way better than my younger self. I used to spring out of bed and bike to morning workouts with the crew team; now I lurch out of bed, solve the crossword in the morning paper and go to work. Also, like you, with a kid in college - I text my son when there are clues relating to the periodic table or the Mohs scale. Well, gotta get to work -- tax season, speaking of the decline of Civilization.

Nancy 9:20 AM  

What @kitshef (8:28) said. Also what @Suzie Q (8:30) said in her first sentence. This had just the right amount of crunchiness -- hard, but doable -- until I got to the SW where it became completely impossible. I DNF. Don't know what the W.W.E. is, much less anyone in it. If I'd remotely thought of SIN CITY... but I didn't. DEFEAT defeated me, as I stared at ---F---T blankly. That was my best chance in that corner and I blew it. I thought it might be DISSTRACK as I stared glumly at SSTR-CK, because it sounds like one of those newfangled coinages the NYT puzzle is so fond of. But it also could have been some kind of RoCK, so I didn't write it in. And I just don't think of pasta as "CARBS". "Let's go to Antonucci's and order some carbs"? You might say that. I JUST MIGHT not.

I also had a DNF at the NIIHsU/LsN cross. But that was the least of my problems. Again -- @kitshef nailed everything that was wrong with this puzzle.

QuasiMojo 9:24 AM  

Good one! @Sir Hillary

OffTheGrid 9:30 AM  

Thought of boll immediately but POD was a good alternative.

Merriam-webster.com/dictionary/boll

Boll definition is: The usually roundish POD or capsule of some plants (such as COTTON or flax).

PETUNIA IS a girl's name and it's a flower so no nit to pick there.

If I made a "best clues of the week" list like @Lewis, the clue for AFRICA would be on it.

It's fun to just scan the completed grid and see all the fun words. NIIHAU, CORKAGE, ZABARS, PARASKI (originated in Poland?), VERAWANG, MUBARAK, DEBUNK, DISSTRACK, WUSS

MickMcMick 9:36 AM  

The center was my stumper. Steinberg is always big on vagueness. I had impala for big horn. Is diss track a real thing? And how does someone Steinberg’s age know about such things. Zabars more than a deli. When I think of Broadway delis I think of the stage or Carnagie’s although they were 7th.

RooMonster 9:36 AM  

Hey All !
There is still a thriving RAVE CULTURE here in SIN CITY once a year. EDC (Electric Daisy Carnival) is a three-day dusk to dawn event out here. Attracts tons of RAVE-ites.

Puz OK. DISS TRACKS seems made up to me. Thankfully don't care about any of that kind of music. Impressive five 9's in the center, with two 10's crossing.

MC BARAK. Har. He could be a DJ at a RAVE.

@Anony 7:00
Got a good chuckle out of that!

ZERO DEBUNK
RooMonster
DarrinV

Z 9:45 AM  

I think I spent as much time sussing out the NW corner as the rest of the puzzle. I had ON A DIET and ADIDAS and little else. The TC finally clicked and gave me SILENT C, wiping out lonDoN as an Olympic locale. After minutes of fruitlessly trying different letter combinations I finally saw DEVILED eggs, convincing me to take out bOll, plop in that S, making ANEW finally obvious, and I finally clawed my way out to avoid a DNF. I was seriously considering taking the DNF and looking up the 1912 Olympics. I’m glad I persisted.

@Jay - The “?” just signifies that some sort of “think differently about the clue” is needed. No problem with it here.

@Suzie Q - I am not sure I buy this, but when you look at the Hershey’s website it looks like they don’t use a capital K in the product name.

@quasimojo - you make “exercises in group groping ... get(ting) high, get(ting) laid or kill(ing) many hours away from the parents,” like a bad thing.

Now, if we can just convince Rex about the wonders of solving in pen...

JustMarci 9:45 AM  

The NW gave me trouble because my brain would not move past BOLL, so I was glad to see jammon's post.

Mr. Benson 9:52 AM  

I remain a paper solver, and very often the only person on my commuter bus or train with a newspaper every morning instead of an electronic device.

I agree with Rex's sentiments on preferring paper, too. I'm a lawyer and while I appreciate and try to cooperate with efforts to go green(er), there are times when I have to sit down with some dead trees to get that sense of command over the medium.

Anonymous 9:59 AM  

Too easy for Friday!

DavidL 10:00 AM  

I did the puzzle in hard copy for my whole life until about a few weeks ago, and finally decided to try the app. And I'm not sure if the app makes me faster or slower. I find myself scrolling around a lot to see the clues, and I make lots of typing errors. Have others ever compared?

I did same thing as @Amy 7:49. When I saw the clue for 40D ("Renowned Broadway deli"), my mind went to Broadway the theater district, not Broadway the avenue. So I typed in "SARDI'S" -- which is not really deli, but neither is ZABARS. Took a while to unscrew that one.

Unknown 10:04 AM  

Ni'ihau is famous for its residents, who are fluent in the Hawaiian language and speak it in daily life.
The island is mostly off-limits to visitors, except for occasional copter flights which can access a small part of the island.
hiloboy

Nancy 10:05 AM  

@Loren (from yesterday) -- I loved your take on the mike/mic flap and I agree wholeheartedly with every single word of your argument.

@Quasi (7:07)-- While I've never seen or listened to a RAVE, your comment on it is very funny. Your critique also makes me determined to continue to avoid seeing or listening to it.

@Sir Hillary (8:17) -- Very funny post. Enjoyed it more than the puzzle.

@John Hnedak (7:51) -- Damn. Now I have an ear worm. I'll be hearing the wonderful "Cotton Fields Back Home" in my head for the rest of the day. Haven't thought about that song in years.

@Birchbark (7:45) -- He's discovered the joy of solving on paper? He has important words of wisdom on the slow decline in history? I guess this is one post I shouldn't have skipped. Going back to read Rex now.

pmdm 10:10 AM  

Marvin Garden: What you say about Zabar's (which I've been in) is absolutely true. It is no more a deli than Stop and Shop. (Pardon to those who never heard of that supermaqrket chain.) Certainly there are better clues.

TokyoRacer: It can seem that the younger the constructor the more desire there is to load the gird up with slang and "hip" proper nouns. Some seem to grow out of it. (I'm looking at you, Eric.) Of course, this is a huge generality that is probably somewhat false. (So don't lecture me, Z.) But when I look at David's name over the puzzle, I say to myself "This is going to be full of pop stuff and proper nouns I could care less above, and today's puzzle did not disappoint me that way.

Nancy 10:13 AM  

Oh, and I forgot to say, @Sir Hillary, how much I love the JEDGAR as an Award for Worst Biopic. Let's make it a permanent category of the Razzies Awards.

Bob Mills 10:14 AM  

Proud to finish this one. The Northwest was really hard for me, because I had "LONDON" instead of "SWEDEN" for the 1912 Olympics site, and "RAVECULTURE" never occurred to me even though I had the culture part.

Anonymous 10:17 AM  

Disappointed that the clue for PETUNIA was not "John Mullaney's French Bulldog"

puzzlehoarder 10:18 AM  

A very routine Friday solve. Struggling to come up with MOSAIC was the only time I really felt like I was dealing with a late week level of solving. This stemmed from my efforts to recall the word Talmud and being unable to. Talmudic is a term and that was basically what I was looking for. By length it would have been eliminated and maybe I wouldn't have spent so much time on a single entry. What allowed MOSAIC to pop up first was that CONAIR, SERRA, and AFRICA were all gimmes. Still, the unexpectedness of MOSAIC was the highlight of the puzzle.

Other than this one stagger stack entry and the north center section this puzzle felt like an early week themeless (if there were such a thing.) Some people complain about the trivia level in puzzles (even today's) and I just don't get it. Straight up words represent a very limited range and that's, of course, why they let everything including the kitchen sink into puzzles. If they aren't laced with unknowns they become boringly easy. There's only so much that clever cluing and the more obscure aspects of language can do. Trivia may seem like a cheap way to generate difficulty but it is sorry needed.

nyc_lo 10:25 AM  

Agreed on BOLL. Never heard of cotton PODS before. Beyond that, the hard, chewy center was the killer for me. Starting with SUGARHIGH screwed me up before -RUSH saved the day. And I despise the general use of “dis,” “diss,” “dissed” or “dissing,” so DISSTRACK was painful. Other than that, just enough mental gymnastics for a Friday.

Hartley70 10:34 AM  

This puzzle was a bear for me. I spent 1 hour and 15 minutes of last night and this morning on it. MOSAIC was the last to go in on what felt like a ridiculous guess. Looking at the finished grid it doesn’t seem so difficult but I struggled in the middle and the center top. CULTURE and DISSTRACK were not on my wavelength.

I too wanted the Stage or the Carnegie deli, but I think they’re both out of business, so ZABARS was a better choice. A sandwich at the Stage was like getting your mouth around Rockefeller Center and don’t get me started on the half-sours. Gone but not forgotten.

GILL I. 10:39 AM  

Fun write-up, @Rex. I like you in the early AM mood.
I've tried doing the puzzle on my husband's iPad. Oof. My trusty 10 year old Cannon always spit out the NYTC every evening right before Jeopardy. Conk. Off to Fry's to buy a new one. After walking 6 miles to find the electronics department, a sweet, pretty and smart saleswoman, guides me to an HP that is 50% off. I buy it for $60.00. It does everything except make you dinner. Come home to hook it up to my MacBook Air. God I hate living in this century. It took me a whole day to find out that you don't just plug it in to our computer. Oh, no....not that easy, missy. Thank you future smarty pants son-in-law...even thought you had to drive all the way over here and it only took you 5 seconds to hook it up. It's worth the $40.00 or so a year to be able to down-load my puzzle, pen in hand, (sorry @Rex) and do the puzzle as God intended.
There's always something that amuses me in a Steinberg puzzle. I know I'm going to learn a word I've never heard of and will never use - ever. Today, I wasn't as amused as I normally am. Sometimes I think he tries a bit much on the cluing. I'm looking at you 48D. HAHA is just too too. I JUST MIGHT...really?
So, a whole lot of kisses might result in a SUGAR RUSH...really? RAVE CULTURE? and my DNF because I have DISh TRACK for that hip-hop rivalry song.
I liked ZABARS crossing DEBUNK. The only thing I would ever buy in that overpriced, rude establishment is their pastrami sandwich, and only if I were thinking of going to the park.
Petunia is a sweet name and flower. Too bad it's associated with a pig. It's a common enough name in Ireland and England. Some shorten it to "Tunia."
Agree on boll vs PODS.
Couldn't get Jimmy Choo out of my head. WINGS was Oscar's first best picture? And folks, for the love of everything that's holy, never watch CON AIR.
If you like up-scale grocery stores such as ZABARS and want friendly service and you happen to be in St. Helena filling your WINE FLASK, stop at Dean & Delucca. Tell em, Gill sent you.

Anonymous 10:47 AM  

Doesn’t anyone solve the NYTimes crossword puzzle in The NY Times, as it first existed, as I do?Actually buying a “newspaper” and folding the page and using a writing implement and thinking about the clues and crosses until the answers can be filled in?
The new world is extremely disappointing.
And , in my opinion, there is no god. I have faith in that belief.

glenbee 10:51 AM  

Re 26 Across: How is KEEN a correct answer for INTENT? Surely the clue should be INTENSE. Intent means "aim" or "purpose".

Peter P 10:57 AM  

DISS TRACK is absolutely a thing. I don't blame people for not knowing it -- it's certainly a generational thing, but it's not an obscure phrase, at least in my experience, to people my age and younger (43). (But the people I hang out with do tend to be into pop culture and music.) To be fair, I don't know half the clues about Broadway music and the winner of the first Oscar, and New York place names or other such trivia, so it all evens out in the end. The earliest reference I could find to it in print from a cursory search is from 1990, but that seems to be a one-off usage. It starts entering the newspaper archives around 2002. (Which probably means that it's been used colloquially for a time by then.)

Part of the reason I love the New York Times puzzles is because they do mix old and new like that. And if it shows up as "new" in the New York Times crossword puzzle, it isn't really all that new. The puzzle lags popular usage and trends by a few years, typically (see: NAENAE).



Malsdemare 10:59 AM  

Fun stuff on the blog today, which sort of makes up for my abyssmal solving experience. I never saw PODS, even though I knew bolS was mispelled. And that made it impossible to figure out the eggs or the winter sport. To add to my woes, I had Pop in stead of PIC and that was a massive slog to untangle. Way to make me feel stupid, David, not that that was your plan (at least I hope not). As a sufferer of 16 years of Catholic education, MOSAIC LAW made sense to me; I filled that in off the —S—CLAW. Of course, that doesn't make up for some of the idiotic other choices I made. Sigh!

@Loren, I agree with your argument totally. But I'm agnostic here, willing to accept either spelling.

Whitey 11:02 AM  

Had "Romaic" Law for the longest time. Leading to "_____ RIGHT" so that had me stuck for a while. Trust right? I must right?

JEDGAR was my last piece as a result. Could not think of AGUE for the life of me. Even with A_UE

Anonymous 11:11 AM  

I measured Leviticus, and called it good (it isn’t)
I did not plunk it down right away, and was glad.

Clay 11:21 AM  

I also agree that a more leisurely solving experience has its benefits. I also solve with clipboard and pencil, and with a really good puzzle, I like to "savor" it; thinking about the answers, and what other, new things those answers make me think about. Of course really easy puzzles have much less appeal than they did 45 years ago when I first started doing them. And Rex! Don't complain about your 49 year-old-body; try getting up in the morning when you're 74!!

Bernie 11:22 AM  

I had a great time with this one. Handled it much more easily than the vast majority of Friday puzzles. Tough but fair!

Anonymous 11:42 AM  

Unknown
Did you notice noone was offended by tbe lack of an apostrophe in Ni'ihau?
I love the sturm and drag over no tilde in ano, but no problemo for that gorgeous island getting short shrift.
Now let me get to get back to NPR so i can hear them pronounce
Madurrrrr-oh, who's having troubke in Carrrrrrrrrrrracas, Venezwhale-a.

Amelia 11:43 AM  
This comment has been removed by the author.
David 11:44 AM  

Now that song is in my head because it's "bolls" not "pods". It's a good song. And what's that weevil called again? A "pod weevil"?

Rave has a culture? Who knew? And do you get distracted by disstrack?

Too many proper nouns I had to get on mostly crosses. Carr? Vera Wang is a name I know but had no idea she's Chinese American. She's a New Yorker, so she knows: Katz's Deli, yes; Carnegie Deli, yes, sadly gone; 2nd Avenue Deli, most assuredly, Sarge's Deli, a favorite; Zabar's? No.

Speaking of all these delis. Leviticus yes, Mosaic Law no. I though only Right Wing Christians conflated the laws of man with the laws of God. Guess I was wrong.

For the Americans here who say they've never heard of Mosaic Law, you may be interested in some of its precepts: the separation of civil authority from religious authority; the separation of military authority from religious authority; the right to face one's accuser; the right to appeal; etc. I hope this sounds familiar to you because it's why the aforementioned Christians conflate the two and do stuff like put the 10 commandments in courthouses. And no, Moses didn't write them himself, they evolved.

Conair is near the top of my list of movies so horrible they're fun to watch.

Enough of my megalomania.

Lewis 11:45 AM  

Love DEVILED over SIN CITY.

Found this to be a mix of crunch and glide. For a while I thought I was going to soar through the puzzle, but the stubborn spots dug in, so when I finally finished successfully, it was quite satisfying, and once again I said TGIF with David.

jb129 11:48 AM  

Always solve on paper - never race against the clock. I guess I'm old-fashioned, but it's very relaxing (for me anyway or as in Rex's comfy chair).

Got caught up on on 48 down but finally got it haha.

Loved it.

Banana Diaquiri 11:52 AM  

it's a boll weevil, not, of course, a POD weevil. equating the two words means that Corvair and Ferrari are also interchangeable. yeah, right.

Uncle BEN's is just really lousy pre-cooked rice. one might object to the graphic, as with Aunt Jemima. but BEN ain't Tom.

Anonymous 11:53 AM  

I believe Rex's praise of the Washington Post crosswords was for the Sunday crosswords, all of which are written by Evan Birnholz.

http://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/2019/03/tree-lined-walk-sun-3-3-19-japanese.html

What She Said 12:08 PM  

@DeeJay: Yes, but we did get Wednesday’s clue for LINEDANCE calling out the Cha Cha Slide immediately after Mulaney’s hilarious SNL skit.

@SuzieQ: Yep. And I love how with a pair of sisters named Lily and Petunia, you can intuit from the names alone which sister would wind up being the disgruntled one.

oldactor 12:16 PM  

Bolls or Pods they're all picked by machine now. When I was little my mother had a friend whose maid asked for the Summer off so she could pick cotton. Our friend asked her, "Why would you want to spend the Summer bent over in the hot South Texas sun dragging a heavy sack?"

She answered, "Oh, it's EASY.... All you have to do is just PICK".

jb129 12:26 PM  

Anonymous @ 9:03 & Mr. Benson - So glad that you agree that doing the puzzle on paper is relaxing ... & rewarding!

Gotta go to work where I will be on the internet all day - can't wait for the morning puzzle solve on PAPER!

Anonymous 12:27 PM  

@Glenys, “I was intent on going to Zabar’s” and “I was keen on their woks for sake.” Steinberg left out the “on.”

albatross shell 12:50 PM  

Boll is a cotton plant pod. If you want a 4 letter singular answer go ask Leadbelly and jump down turn around and pick a BALE OF cotton. Play that song in the morning, it will get you moving.
Most clues that are self-referential to the spelling of the word rather than its meaning come wit a ? The end.
Do not buy the nitpicking about SILENTC very much. The reasoning is unduly complex and quibbles about how some people pronounce it. If the c were not silent it would be mick-sel-aneous or mic would be pronounced miss.
Yes: sell and cell are pronounced the same, but would you really be happier with the answer SILENTS?

@LMS
You could also ride your bic or if younger your tric. NYT On language column says the AP style standard changed from mike to mic in 2010 but kept mike as the verb form.

He was intent or KEEN on getting the job done.











TomAz 12:51 PM  

I don't know. I'm an old white guy and I got RAVE CULTURE just off R_VEC______. I got DISS TRACK off DISp____K. In fact seeing DISS TRACK is led me to correct Wimp to WUSS. These do not seem like obscurities to me at all.

NIIHAU is an obscurity.. I knew exactly what island they meant but I sure couldnt' remember the name. Needed almost all the crosses there.

@LMS: The whole Lynyrd Skynyrd/Neil Young thing is fascinating. There's even a song about it by the Drive-By Truckers called "Ronnie and Neil". It's excellent if you are so inclined.

@Glenys Burton: I had the same question and ultimately rationalized it by thinking of 'intent' as an adjective rather than noun. "Trump is intent on discrediting the Mueller probe" / "Trump is KEEN on discrediting the Mueller probe".



CDilly52 12:53 PM  

And don’t believe cauliflower pizza crust either.

Chip Hilton 12:59 PM  

Fun one and appropriately challenging for a Friday.

ADIDAS and Puma. Read about the Dassler brothers who founded the two companies and you’ll learn it was a rivalry on steroids. Pure hatred which spread across the families and companies.

TomAz 1:00 PM  

@TokyoRacer: I agree with you, but only in part. Names of people are fine so long as there aren't too many of them and they don't all crowd in one field (I am very good at baseball, football, and pop music names, and very bad at Broadway, opera, and TV names). Too often, though, puzzles cross the line here.

Names of things, though, I think are a whole different category. I had no objection to MOSAIC LAW .. I am not Jewish but I knew it, eventually. I think it's fair game to include some level of cultural intelligence in the puzzle. Hence no objection to RAVE CULTURE or DISS TRACK (which as I noted above came to me pretty easily) but also no objection to ARIA or BMINOR or similar things that show up from time to time.

It would seem to me that having a puzzle that was just Scrabble-legal words day in and day out would be horribly dull.

Masked and Anonymous 1:06 PM  

Paper and pencil with a big-ass eraser, at our house.

Learned more new stuff from this FriPuz than I would normally expect. Includin: MOSAICLAW. DISSTRACK. ZABARS. NIIHAU.

Did like the subtle MEGALOMANIA semi-theme, with IJUSTMIGHT & ILUCKEDOUT. And sorta N-I-I-HA-U, I suppose? And of course ME-W [ergo, staff weeject pick].

WINEFLASK Mystery: I hate to wine with an h, but when I did a google-pic on wine flask, I got a silver-colored container with "wine" etched into it. Looked neither white nor red.

Thanx for the feisty fun, Mr. Steinberg. I forgive any/all of the above, due to yer puz's generous U-count. And the primo jaws of themelessness.

Masked & Anonym8Us


More of them jaws:
**gruntz**

CDilly52 1:08 PM  

Agree. My NYC Deli is Katz’s: since 1888! Amazing pastrami.

CDilly52 1:12 PM  

Good Friday workout for me. Difficult with the unfamiliar, but I made it.

Teedmn 1:13 PM  

I've seen MOSAIC LAW enough times now that _O_AI_LA_ should have fallen into place easily but no, I had to have _O_AI CLAW claw its way into my head first. My pattern recognition skills are not all I've always thought they were :-).

I had to leave the NW when "bolls" didn't fit at 1A, and I see I'm not alone. I have a live version of Harry Belafonte singing "In Them Old Cotton Fields Back Home" and I couldn't get past that. PODS, we're definitely talking OKRA!

I feel a bit worse about not knowing Ni'ihau than Rex does. Seems like something I should know but there it was, making me all nervous about a potential DNF but the crosses said it had to be.

David Steinberg, thanks for another fine Friday puzzle, right at the difficulty level I expect for this day.

Pam Fletcher 1:17 PM  

Hey rex solving on paper makes for a more mellow you! Indulge that from time to time- you might come to enjoy it!

Anonymous 1:25 PM  

Done with the puzzle, gonna go catch my favorite bollcast.

jberg 1:35 PM  

Gah!! Another stupid DNF. I went from Wimp out to WaSh out, and finally just gave up, giving me a DISh TRACK -- which makes some sense, but it's in the wrong idiom. So I just gave up on 34A. If I'd had more time, maybe, but I'm on vacation, so I had to rush.

I wanted some kind of rOMANce, then something that happens in rOMANIA, so finally getting it was fun -- and gave me NIIHAU, even though I had no idea. Looked it up after finishing, and was astounded to find it was a real place.

@Quasi, I've never been to a rave, but I think it's about the dancing, not the music -- all that is wanted is a good beat.

And please add me to the "I pronounce the c" group. I almost put in L there.

OK, my wife is champing at the bit to go walk on the beach, so tata!

Suzie Q 1:37 PM  

@ M&A, Haha re: red or white flask. You sly devil you.

albatross shell 1:45 PM  

The WINEFLASK contains red or white wines.

Unknown 2:08 PM  

Hand up for Leviticus! I liked it so much it took a while for me to yank it out!

Doc John 2:29 PM  

Glad to see Rex liked one again.
I had a malaplop at 49A- put in AERATE only to find out that AERATOR went in right above it.
@ Anonymous 8:26 AM: AGUE does mean "flu-like symptoms" and if the fever is high enough it can cause seizures or "a fit." Not a good fit at all.

albatross shell 2:30 PM  

Red or white flask. Guess I'm missing a joke not you. Thought you were too clever, but I am not. SQ got it, I guess.

I did like SUSAN crossing SUSHIRICE. Waiting for SUSHI crossing SUSANRICE.

I think we just might have lucked out today.
Good puzzle. NE beat me for along time even though I had considered most of the correct answers long before I finished it because of my failure to get wrong answers out of the way. Hey I thought of all those (except SILENTC and PARASKI)... what took so long?







Paul 2:30 PM  

There is no deli called Zabars. It's an old fashioned NYC Appetizing market

RooMonster 2:32 PM  

@M&A
Here is your Red Flask and here is your White Flask.
Har.

Wine you say? Isn't there a Purple one out there somewhere?

RooMonster Snark Desk

albatross shell 2:52 PM  

I knew Mosaic without being a Jew or a Catholic. I understand that Moses was at one time credited with writing the first 5 books and Mosaic Law refers to the mosaic (no linguistic connection I know of) of laws contained in those books. That would include Leviticus. Are all the dietary laws in Leviticus? I don't know, but if so either answer would work.

I believe all laws came from man, but I do not expect Believers to believe so.

Maybe my Catholic friends just like to complain or exaggerate, but I have heard many stories of suffering. Does not mean that the education was bad, just means unnessary pain and distress unaccompanied it.





leah712 2:53 PM  

Just came here to see if anyone else put in Leviticus and as usual I was not disappointed. Another case of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing, as in knowing which book of the Torah contains the kashrut laws caused us to write in the wrong answer.

Anonymous 2:57 PM  

If you bother to look up the definition of intent, you'll see keen listed as a synonym. That would explain how it's a correct answer.

Masked and Anonymous 3:11 PM  

@albatross shell: Actually, when M&A was solvin the puz, he *didn't* get the red or white wine reference, and thought it was the container's colors bein talked about. Did kinda figure it out while postin my comment #1, and decided to go ahead and make fun of myself. Sooo … mucho thanx, for tryin to help old wrong-again-M&A-breath out.

MOSAIC LAW [Law of Moses] also almost got a similar treatment in my comment #1, but I thought better not, as didn't wanna hurt any Moses fan's feelins. Does sound like some kinda rule about keepin all yer red and white tile/stone pieces apart in the mosaic picture, so they don't blend together too much, or somesuch.

M&Also

GHarris 3:24 PM  

Found this very difficult and was only able to finish by resort to auto check. Not that I get answers from that source but it gives me the confidence to throw down answers that seem crazy yet turn out to be correct. Agree with all those who protest that Zabars is not a deli.Had to weigh in on the Manafort sentence and if anyone is interested (Nancy?) my letter will appear in the NYTimes later today online and in print tomorrow.

Rube 4:05 PM  

Agree.zabars is upscale pretentious food store. Broadway delis are Stage and Carnegie. Vestiges of a bygone era.

TrudyJ 4:16 PM  

Count me as one more person who totally screwed up the middle of this puzzle by confidently writing in LEVITICUS as soon as I saw the clue on 27A.

Phil 4:17 PM  

Only Hawaiians are allowed on Ni’ihau. Rex’s wiki blurb is kind of lacking in not mentioning that, IMO.

Nancy 4:27 PM  

@GHarris (3:24)-- I've made myself a note to look for it, since, as you may know, I Remember Nothing. I want to read it in the paper of course, because that's where I enjoy seeing my own Letters to the Editor. There's so much stuff online -- reading it there always seems a lot less "special". Congrats on getting another letter in so soon.

Mike Reed 4:31 PM  

Happy to have gotten a crossword that's based a bit in the 21st century as opposed to the pattern it's gotten into the past couple weeks. Between RAVECULTURE, DISSTRACK, John CENA, among others, the most archaic answer seemed to be PETUNIA. Although Steinberg did well with this, I would've liked to see the NYTimes highlight a woman writer today, considering International Women's Day, but I guess I'm just sadly used to not getting that.

bookmark 4:50 PM  

I confidently entered MOSAIC law. And I was raised Southern Baptist!

Wundrin' 4:57 PM  

That's Islandist! But seriously, if Ni'ihua is part of Hawaii, it's part of the US and I don't see how they could exclude anyone. Logistics may be another issue.

GHarris 5:04 PM  

Thanks Nancy. I agree seeing it in print is more appealing, makes it seem eternal. Ha. I suspect you’lL find some common ground in the letter when you do get to read it.

Margaret 5:08 PM  

Not Venezwhale-a. It's Beneswhale-a.

Crimson Devil 5:13 PM  

Hate to hear that Carnegie Deli is gone. Loved lunch there when lived in NYC.
Hand up for paper/pen with AM coffee solving, no timer.
Sweet Home.
Like I JUST MIGHT & I LUCKED OUT.

Hungry Mother 5:18 PM  

Biggest slog in a long while, but I got it!

Seeg 5:19 PM  

You may know this, but for $20 ? a year I print it out..Right a 10 PM. Generally not Doing Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday- but it’s still about a dime a puzzle.

Seeg 5:22 PM  

Yes, thorny. I had rage culture.

Anonymous 5:28 PM  

I'm shocked, shocked. No rant by Rex about Junipero Serra, a disgracefully racist Spanish missionary? And Rex is from California too. He must be slipping.



Malsdemare 6:27 PM  

@GHarris, I live in Illinois so don't get the print version of the paper. That means I can be one of the first to say, well done. I dislike as a principle criticizing judges, but I think Ellis erred. It may be time for him to retire.

Anonymous 6:32 PM  

Anonymous 5:28.
Thats Saint Father Serra.try to keep up.
Glad to see the mods, as ever, let slurs against Christians slide.

jae 6:51 PM  

Easy-medium.

Me too for wanting boll before PODS, plus Rake before REIN, and gLASs before FLASK.

NIIAHU was a major WOE. Made me have doubts.

Smooth with plenty of zip, liked it.

CDilly52 6:54 PM  

Hand up for eliminating the sturm und drang over only one single diacritical mark!

Wundrin' Too 7:00 PM  

@ Wundrin' Another case of selective racism. That comment had me wundrin' too. That sort of thinking is also preventing a telescope from being built on Mauna Kea. Forget scientific advancements, the highest mountain on earth is off limits.

albatross shell 7:21 PM  

Serra was the one recently made a saint who made a practice of torturing natives til they converted because it was for their own good. Children too. Or have I got the wrong saint? Or is that a slur and just propaganda I picked up somewhere? I was avoiding the issue, but now that you mention it, let me know.







Amy 8:31 PM  

Plus one on zabars is not a deli. And very pleased to see that issue thoroughly dealt with here in the comments.

Preferred Customer 9:24 PM  
This comment has been removed by the author.
GILL I. 9:32 PM  

@albatross shell....I became interested in Junipero Serra when visiting one of his many missions. My favorite - San Jun Capistrano. I read as much as I could in that one visit.
Religious and cultural differences was always part of the American landscape in the early 18th century. Christian missionaries never did recognize the customs of the Native peoples and called them "heathens." No surprise, since Catholic Spain wanted every one to convert to Christians.
Historical narrative interpretations depend a lot on the interpreter. There are many Native Americans that are Catholic because of Serra. So, was he a cultural imperialist? He had one goal...and that was to convert the "heathens." He succeeded. He was relentless in his conversion role but during this process he introduced agriculture, winemaking, stability, food. This was the price.
History has its interpreters - evil and good along the way. Ask most practicing Mexican American Catholics what they think about Serra....

Z 10:53 PM  

@PC - Looks like a winter sport to me. I think you’re thinking of para water skiing. Now let’s discuss the moral implications of centuries old human rights crimes... or not. I’m good with “not.”

GHarris 11:11 PM  

@malsdemare
Thank you for the comment. Yes, judges are generally respected figures but that respect should be earned. I am more put off by Judge Ellis’ disrespectful treatment of the attorneys and his disregard of basic judicial protocols ie don’t make comments that may influence jurors, leave the fact finding to the Panel, than I am about the shameful quality of his sentence.Btw federal judges almost never retire; they take senior status and go on infinitum.

Mark 12:54 AM  

For the first time in years, I found a David Steinberg puzzle not impossible. I guess I'm making progress.

Anonymous 1:38 PM  

I'm so sick of Will Shortz's complete disregard for precise wording and correct usage. Very first clue in this puzzle: Cotton pickers pick bolls, not pods. A cotton pod is the green container that eventually matures into a boll. If you picked the pod, you'd end up with no cotton, just a bunch of useless seeds. This information is easily available online, but does "editor" Shortz care? He does not. And what's especially annoying about it is that there are dozens of "pods" definitions that could have been used. So why use an inaccurate one?

Mike 2:39 PM  

@GHarris I used my last free article to read your letter. I agree with your take.

VictorS 7:26 PM  

My understanding of Serra is that he basically enslaved native Californians. Recently visited Fort Matanzas in Florida. Matanzas is Spanish for slaughter. As in they slaughtered the Huguenots who fled religious persecution and actually got on well with the native peoples. The Spanish of course had a different view of native people’s. But whatever one thinks about Spanish colonialism since there were people in California before Serra (and therefore preSerra history ) how can Serra be the father of California history?

Dennis Merritt 6:29 PM  

I highly recommend Mirado Black Warrior pencils for solving on paper. Excellent tools for the task. My daughter bought me a life time supply. Not that many since I'm 73, but still, nice to know I've got enough pencils to last.

spacecraft 11:20 AM  

Don't you dare "easy-medium" me, Fearless. We choose to go to the moon and solve Steinberg puzzles not because they are easy, but because they are HAHD!! Terrible hard; almost DNF-hard. The first near-derailment was writing in rEfUte for poke holes in. Well, wouldn't you? Sure you would. Finally remembered CORKAGE, thank goodness.

Then there was the NW/N. Hard as hell to parse IJUSTMIGHT. AGUE not a good fit?? I'm still head-scratching about that one. Anyway, triumph points through the roof of a skyscraper on this one. Truly, ILUCKEDOUT finishing it. NIIHAU indeed. Is it even inhabited? Yikes!

DOD is Jill St. John, portrayer of Tiffany CASE. Best I could come up with; I'm in a bit of a rush today. SILENTC misses the eagle putt; birdie.

Burma Shave 11:53 AM  

DEVILED CARBS

“CAN you pass me ANEW WINEFLASK with no CORKAGE, my pretty?”
“ONADIET? IJUSTMIGHT ask.”
“Yes, ILUCKEDOUT in SINCITY.”

--- J.EDGAR CENA-SERRA

rondo 12:23 PM  

I put in Ulm for Wm. Tell’s canton before I realized that Wm wasn’t going anywhere for 13d, and eventually URI showed up. Clean otherwise.

I thought MOSAICLAW had something to do with tile art.

That one-page punishment paper I had to write in 10th grade Social Studies finally pays off thanks to Junipero SERRA.

Did I ever mention that there’s a football player named HAHA Clinton-Dix? Try him sometime constructors.

There’s a lot of SUSANs to choose from, but because of the lareg number of labels iin the missus’ closet, I’d be remiss not to say, “VERAWANG, yeah baby!”

Another good one from DS, who apparently has Will’s type of job over at Universal Xword.

5wksltr 2:02 PM  

Paraski-originated in Poland? made me laugh - thanks OffTheGrid. It reminds me of the time I checked "The Dreadful Lemon Sky" by John D MacDonald out of the local library. I'd misread the title as "The Dreadful Lemonsky" and spent the first half of the book waiting for the title villain (Polish?) to show up.

Diana,LIW 3:48 PM  

I'll be back, but ILUCKEDOUT with a lot of great guesses on this DS puzzle. We had a wonderful cat sitter named SUSAN who was anything but lazy.

Lady Di

leftcoastTAM 8:44 PM  

Way late and waylaid. Northern tier took me out early. I may be too old for Steinberg.

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