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Physician Franz who coined term animal magnetism / SUN 3-31-19 / Roc band with 1994 4x platinum album Downward Spiral for short
Sunday, March 31, 2019
Constructor: Andrew J. Ries
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (9:55)
NOTE:
THEME: "Take One For The Team" — themers contain the names of Major League Baseball teams + 1 extra letter. The the extra letters end up spelling (when taken in order from top themer to bottom themer) SACRIFICE, which you then enter at 76-Down, which is clued only [See note]. Get it, because "SACRIFICE" is a baseball play and you have to metaphorically "SACRIFICE" a letter to get the actual baseball team name ... yeah, you get it ...
Theme answers:
- ASPIRATES (25A: Pronounces breathily)
- MEAT SAUCE (27A: Hearty pasta topping)
- CASTRO STREET (39A: Historic San Francsico thoroughfare)
- SCRUB SUITS (44A: Outfits in the operating room)
- TELEVANGELISM (66A: Some Sunday broadcasting)
- FRED SAVAGE (84A: "The Wonder Years" star)
- PAID RESPECTS (90A: Visited out of deference (to))
- GRAYSCALE (105A: Colorless mode at a copy shop)
- PORTWINES (107A: Strong servings with dessert)
Jacklyn Sheryl Rosen (née Spektor; August 2, 1957) is an American politician serving as the juniorU.S. Senator from Nevada. Prior to serving in the Senate, Rosen served one term as the U.S. Representative for Nevada's 3rd congressional district. She was elected to the United States Senatein the 2018 election, defeating Republican incumbent Dean Heller.[1] She is the only freshman in the U.S. House of Representatives who won a seat in the U.S. Senate during the 2018 midterm electionsand the only challenger to defeat a Republican incumbent Senator in the 2018 cycle. (wikipedia)
• • •
The fill didn't exactly sizzle either. ARB, ONLAY (I only know INLAY), ELHI ESO and my all-time non-favorite answer, ALIENEE. Theme density => highly segmented grid (to keep the fill cleanish) => mostly short and dull stuff. Longer stuff doesn't exactly shine either. UTAHNS PERI ADLAI UTNE CHE ISEE. WAF!?!? I liked CASTRO STREET as an answer. GRAYSCALE is Ok too. SCRUB SUITS is redundant. FRED SAVAGE is a cool throwback. Or a throwback, anyway. PORT WINES is redundant. I had BLOB before GLOB (105D: Shapeless mass), and SPY NOVEL before SPY STORY, which is more accurate, but wrong today, I guess (68D: John le Carré specialty). I think I'm gonna go now. I did a really beautiful 17x17 puzzle by Paolo Pasco today (from the American Values Club Crossword), and I'm just gonna count that as my Sunday solving experience. It was everything I wish NYT Sundays could be. Simple and original and delightful.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. almost forgot—loved "MAUDE"; more Bea Arthur, please (1A: Top 10-rated sitcom each season from 1972 to 1976)
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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111 comments:
A dugout canoe is powered by a paddle, not an OAR.
hASHA for KASHA and iNLAY for ONLAY were the only bumps in the road to an easy Sunday.
I liked it.
Lets imagine a puzzle this bad, but with a female centric theme rather than a male* centric theme. The likelihood it would see the light of day is what, 0%? That's the gender issue.
*Yes, I know that women like baseball too, they're just outnumbered by men 10 to 1.
Easy-medium works. Second to last thing I did was change iNLAY to ONLAY because DiME is not the rear end of a sports venue.
Liked it more than @Rex did. Kinda cute in an almost tricky sorta way.
Found it a lot harder than did Rex but anything centering on baseball is okay with me. Favorite answer was 10 down, eargasm. Never heard it before, made me chuckle.
This just felt tedious. One serious error: a dugout, normally a canoe, could not be propelled by an oar, a paddle would be required.
Mets won their second game, and here is a baseball themed puzzle. No complaints from me! Even the new slang that I usually find irritating - bro -hug, seemed vaguely familiar. Do doctors actually call their scrubs "Scrub suits"? And I really wanted "inlay" instead of "onlay," but "RCA DIME" could not be right...Rock band that is NIN for short?? No idea what that means, so fortunate that the crossing clues were all unambiguous. Drake is a rap star?
Still, no Naticks, no problems, the Mets were there, but not the Yankees. Thanks, Mr. Ries, for a puzzle with no Mister Ries...
This was much too late to be doing a Sunday puzzle. It wasn't that hard once I got it started but after awhile I'd put in an entry then start falling asleep and have to shake myself awake. It would be a struggle to read the next clue.
NIN as clued was a debut. I looked over its entire xwordinfo list as soon as I finished the puzzle. All of the 102 previous appearances of NIN have all concerned Anais. Most of that time the band has been around. This clue must have come from the constructor. I've never heard of Nine Inch Nails referred to as NIN but then again I'm not a true fan . There has to have been a few older solvers wondering what that entry was all about. It seems refreshing compared to putting in ELO for the zillionth time.
Friday left a bad taste in my mouth, so while I normally can't stand Sundays, this didn't seem so bad by NY Times Sunday standards and by DERE standards.
As usual, never saw that there was a note. Pretty much ignored the circled letters as they were not making any sense, finished the puzzle and figured out the theme. Didn’t need no stinkin’ note.
Sunday slog, but a fun one.
I bet our baseball loving, crossword constructor C.C. Burnikel loved this one.
What is the meaning of ORGS? All I can figure is that it’s a reference to just the ordinary word “Organizations,” but why would a charitable giver have a list of organizations? Is there something about the shorthand ORG that conveys a tax deductible gift getting organization?
If I were just shown the word ORG, I would never ever define it in any way as a nonprofit. I suppose all recipient of tax deductible gifts are organizations, but far from all organizations are tax deductible gift getters—see, for instance, the UN, PLO, NATO, NYSE, MLB, etc.
i solve in the nyt international edition. for some odd reason (incompetence?) there was no note. this made it a bit more obscure than i'm sure mr. ries intended.
no note in nytie?
I generally pooh-pooh the “Z is Rex’s alter ego” tin foil hat brigade, but that write-up had me nervous. Just starting to get over a nasty head cold and in misery at the Tigers anemic offense and there’s Rex describing me/him in too much synchronicity. Eerie.
The magazine has formatted the puzzle differently for the past few weeks, moving the KenKen to another page and adding a little bio of the constructors, along with a subtle increase in font size. The explainer was buried after the bio. I wish I hadn’t read it, I’m pretty bad at figuring out meta-themes, but appreciate being given the chance to try. The whole “ let us hold your hand through it because it’s too complicated for you simpletons” is just a wee bit condescending. Just let us figure it out. Maybe hide a “hint” somewhere else in the magazine rather than spoil a perfectly okay little device if you think too many people are going to complain the meta was too difficult.
Regarding OARs and paddles: OARs are used to row while the person sits backward in the boat and OARs are attached. Paddles are used to, uh, paddle while the person faces forward. Paddles are not attached. As far as I know the terms are never interchangeable.
@puzzlehoarder - Wow. Never before? Nine Inch Nails has been around since the early 1990’s, so the entirety of Shortz’ tenure at the NYTX, and this is their first use as a clue for NIN. Wow.
@OISK - Not surprised you don’t know NIN, If you ever see a rectangle with NIN in it where the second N is reversed, always black and white, that is the NIN logo. You would hate their music. Here is Johnny Cash performing a cover of one of their early songs. I doubt you’ll like this either, but it makes the lyrics more accessible.
Moronic! - Please EDIT the crosswords! Otherwise - Goodbye NYT!
I had to google onlay before I would even believe it was a thing. My spellcheck still doesn't think it is.
The title was perfect for the theme.
It was fun figuring out the teams in the grid with just one or two team letters filled in, but because you never knew where the wayward letters were placed, you couldn't just slap the team name down. I liked that, as it added grit to the solve.
Just returned yesterday from NINe days in the 'States, during which I didn't solve any NYT crossword puzzles. But I did get to sample some interesting ALEs, including one that had been infused with a touch of habanero. Normally I'm not too keen with dressing up beers with substances that aren't authorised by the German beer-purity laws, but that one was definitely distinctive.
Mrs. 'mericans and I worked on this one together, IN PERSON and on paper (hence no "note") and agree on @Rex's easy-medium rating. We would have completed it faster if I wasn't on the lookout for a rebus. I like thinking about baseball (sorry, @Rex and @Z, about your Tigers games), but that was for is the main positive thing we could say about the theme. Otherwise, meh.
On the other hand, the fill was fine. Had the same write-overs as @Rex, with iNLAY and bLOB. Nice to see a different clue than the usual for STUD.
At the risk of beating a dead horse, Genesis 8:4 does not refer to any peak (singular) called ARARAT, but to the mountains of ARARAT -- i.e., a mountain range, containing several peaks (plural). The idea that that the mythical Noah's ark beached itself on Mt. ARARAT itself is a comparatively modern-day legend. Yet the NYT keeps referring to that unverified event as a fact. (Not in this case, but on other occasions.)
Get well soon, @Rex!
I normally cannot abide a sport-themed puzzle. This one required no sports knowledge at all however, and solved like a perfectly good themeless.
as a 34 yr old avid puzzler who loves rock music I’ve constantly wondered why it’s always “anais” and never “Trent reznors band.” My only thought is the NIN logo has a backwards N and therefore not the most accurate representation of the word. NIN makes me EARGASM so I loved seeing these both
FWIW, all of MAUDE is available on YouTube—it holds up pretty well!
Thei theame didn’ta wordk flor mwe
This confirms for me once again that I don't like puzzles with circles. The themers themselves were quite easy and I got SACRIFICE with just a few letters. That part wasn't great for me, but I still somehow liked the puzzle as a whole. Turning EARworm (which wasn't working) into EARGASM was kinda fun.
Could also be referencing the URL extension .org, which usually denotes a non-profit.
Apparently it is WE the customers who must SACRIFICE any pleasure in today’s puzzle offering. Dull as watching baseball on TV for hours at a stretch. Even televangelism would be more interesting.
Nin= Nine inch nails
@Z, I don't know what other people think but to me it's not so much that you're our host in disguise as it is that you're his mini me. Nothing tinfoil hat about it.
@Kevin, websites that are dot orgs are typically nonprofits.
Can someone please explain the clue/answer for 38 Down - what does ARB stand for ?
Apposite? That was a new one for me. Anyone else want to weigh in?
Rex, why the Tigers? I was born in Detroit so they were my 1st team. Kaline, Freehan, McAuliffe (foot in a bucket stance), Cash, Horton, Northrup, Frank Larry ....Lolich and McLain in '68. Loved those guys.
Puzzle not so much, but okay for Sunday.
@puzzlehoarder - at 6’4” and 260 I never get called “mini.” I will confess that Rex and I are like-minded on lots of issues, but since I have a decade and a hundred pounds on the guy, Rex would have to be the “mini-me.” As for those other people, I assume it is the same anonymouse who occasionally makes the assertion, but one never knows since they all look alike.
@‘mericans - It’s going to be a long summer for Tiger fans. We should be better than the Orioles were last year, but it’s a combination of guys past their prime and guys who are more prospect than big leaguer, so maybe not much better. Of the everyday players, the only one who would start on a contender is a 36 year-old future hall-of-famer who’s been injured the past couple of years (as happens to athletes in their 30’s). And a contender would probably make him DH. It would be one thing if any of these young players looked like they were going to bust out, but they all look like “average major leaguer” is their ceiling.
@Newf - The new words had to be parts of actual words and the extra letters have to make a word. Good luck with that, it’s not as easy as it seems.
Had a long six day weekend in Washington DC last week and for the first time in my life (truly!) I did not start my day with the NYT crossword. Did not miss it. Never before went more than a day or two.
This one was not enjoyable for me at all. Kind of dopey, really. If the extra letter were consistently located I think I might have liked it more, but I guess I agree with @Lewis this kept me from simply plunking teams in the circles and making it too easy. As with almost very puzzle, there were off definitions. For example, a loom is not an AID in tapestry making, it is the SINE QUA NON (see yesterday's marzipan.)
@Southside Johnny, - in Crossworld an ARB is someone involved in “arbitrage,” There’s an actual noun for that person that I can’t remember now. It appears in crosswords about 1000 times more often than it appears in the real world. I seem to recall someone actually involved in finance once saying it is a dated term, but heck if I know. Any way, three letter person with some sort of finance clue is often an ARB. File it away for future puzzles. You will not need it in real life.
Thanks. Most of my encounters with technology end something like this.
There are 162 games in an MLB season. How many have been played so far in this season...? 6 or 7? How people are fans of baseball in April I'll never know. It's similar to the NBA and the NHL. And the post season in all three of those sports are seasons unto themselves. Rex is lamenting 28 innings...well, buddy, there's only about 1450 to go. One thousand four hundred and fifty. Meh...wake me when it's October.
As for the puzzle...I didn't think it sucked. It was just a puzzle. O-O/A-B was kinduva Natick to me (is Natick capitalized?) Like Rex, I didn't need the theme...I got SACRIFICE just by the crosses, and I didn't bother to go back to the grayed in areas to find the teams.
ATHROB was my least favorite word in the puzzle.
RAPSTAR was a close second. You can be a rock star...you might even be a movie star or the star of stage and screen...but I'm pretty sure fans of rap music don't call Drake a "RAPSTAR." My SO, who listens to it once in a while, laughed at the term too. He said it's what someone who isn't inclined to rap might call someone who is famous as a rap artist. They probably also say things like, "What's up, dog?" and "How are things hanging, homey?" He might be a little reverse racist, I'm not sure.
To me, it isn't that RAPSTAR is bad, per se, it's just goofy. Wonky. Sideways. Not APPOSITE.
I read the note before I began and entered MEATSAUCE after “bolognese” didn’t work. Right there I had the gimmick and the measure of the menu.
I ignored the ridiculously easy GRAY spaces even for a baseball know nothing. I solved as a themeless, a long, long trek to the finish, but never boring. 10 minutes, Rex? This is where I suspend all belief unless there is a LOTTA caffeine in those liquids and not much rest.
I had one error that I was able to correct easily from EARGASp to EARGASM. Wow, what a great word! It gave me one just saying it aloud. That is one useful word and worth the price of admission today.
Longer solve than usual. Of course, OFL rates it easy-medium to rub my lousy time in a little deeper.
@megswid - longtime NIN fan as well, so this was the bright spot for me.
No sportsball for me but figured out the theme sans note.
The cluing was pretty dry today but over all, a pleasurable enough solve.
Like @KRMunson, I didn't know APPOSITE and I'm left wondering where APPOSITE is more APPOSITE than, say, APt or APPropriate? Anyone with an example?
One clue I did sort of chuckle at was for UVULA. I could picture many nooks and crannies around the house that might need a tiny flashlight.
Thanks, Andrew Ries, for a seasonally APPOSITE puzzle.
A whole lotta work and an elaborate setup. Payoff was not worth it. Clue for KRONA is baffling. Rather than kvetch more, I’ll just move on.
Oh,and Brie Larson wears a NIN tee shirt in Captain Marvel. The music in that movie is, by and large, marvelous.
Arbitrager
@chefwen calls this "a Sunday slog, but fun." Personally, I have never encountered a "fun slog". But I'm in full agreement about the "slog" part. This puzzle felt endless while doing it and I came close to dropping it more than once. But I hung around to see what was causing me problems in the middle of the Far West. It seems that I wanted to put the Jazz fans in New Orleans instead of Utah (75A) and kept trying to come up with a 6-letter abbreviation for people from New Orleans, beginning, of course, with an "N". Nor did I recognize COMPOTE -- a dessert that I think I've never had or even seen. My sugary syrup desserts tend to be flan or creme caramel or (even yummier) creme brulee, and none fit.
So I ended up finishing the puzzle -- despite a theme I found crashingly uninteresting and fill and clues that I found incredibly bland. But it wasn't easy enough to do on automatic pilot, either. Making it, for me, the worst of both worlds.
Oof. Baseball. I know I'm probably the only person on this blog that doesn't particularly like the game. My parents did, though. One was a Yankee fan and the other a Dodgers. We had this big old black and white TV in Havana and you could watch "I Love Lucy" and the World Series. Oh, and "The Three Stooges."
I know all the teams because I don't live in a cave but other than RBI, I know squat. Baseball is like watching paint dry unless you happen in on a game where the bases are loaded and some dude hits a home run.
Soccer...on the other hand...maybe because I'm in love with Ronaldo and Messi....
Anyway, the puzzle was fairly easy. I was hoping for a few smiles and I only got one: CASTRO STREET. I lived in SFO when Harvey Milk put together the CASTRO STREET Fair. I went to my first one I think around the late 70's and it was something else. Then I went back about 10 years later and there were about a zillion people attending. The parades, the food, the costumes - sheer bacchanalian. It was too crowded for my liking but dang, it was fun. I've never seen so many handsome, naked men in my life. All of them taken (sigh). Story of my life.
My "racist" word of the day today is HANOI. Just thinking of Jane Fonda along with Frump and Ugh, makes me want to SLUNK and SNEER at those WHEELNUTS.
EARGASM? OH, SURE.
@ KRMunson
Usually appears as “inapposite” meaning does not apply. Word often used by lawyers.
@Z
Arbitrageur
So agree!
Agree! Never noticed the team names; just enjoyed a super-easy puzzle.
"WAF" was the Women's Air Force, iirc. I'm with OFL on "onlay" being a terrible answer, as well as a few others. I found this a pretty challenging puzzle, but the theme was weak.
@GILL I, I easily sussed out all the team names, but I have to agree with your opinion about baseball being akin to watching paint dry. My Dad was a Minor and Little League coach when we were kids and I was the designated score keeper. My poor brother suffered because my Dad was tougher on him than anyone else. The only exciting thing that ever happened during one of those games was the one time when some of the moms got into a physical fight. Fortunately my son didn’t like baseball thanks to two terrible coaches so I only had to watch two seasons of him doing cartwheels or spotting birds in the outfield.
I'm not sure I've ever encountered inAPPOSITE. But I've seen APPOSITE numerous times. Here's an example:
"In that regard, Mr. Obama seems an APPOSITE speaker at Mandela’s centenary." — Peter Godwin, "Mandela’s Troubled Legacy", Wall Street Journal, 13 July 2018.
Pretty joyless solving for me. Although the answers for 1- and 2-across did plant the image of “MAUDE ON ICE” in my head, an Icecapade I’d pay to see. “God will get you for that, Arthurrrrr....”
Had wILY instead of OILY, which kept me from figuring out ORGS and RAGS for quite a long time.
Never heard of ONLAY instead of iNLAY, but my wife pointed out that her recently installed crown was an ONLAY (which sure cost more than a "bit"). I knew the answer wasn't inlay because I really didn't think there was any sports stadium built on/in/with a DiME.
The CASTRO district is certainly historic and notable. I'd never particularly heard of CASTRO STREET (for all I knew it was an avenue or a boulevard), and Google seems to agree that there is nothing of particular importance about it. Wikipedia's only reference is a disambiguation page, with not a single detail on Castro Street, San Francisco, other than for its Muni station.
ELKS and MOOSE in the same puzzle, clued quite differently.
I don't think that anything in Genesis qualifies as proven "fact," but I must admit I have spent 60 years thinking that Genesis had the ark coming to rest on the slopes of Mt. ARARAT, not in the mountains of Ararat.
The note helped me a bit. MEATSAUCE was a bit too much like green paint for me to be sure I had it right, but knowing that removing the A yielded the METS told me I was right. It didn't help me with the others.
Captcha is getting really hostile. I had to verify 5 fire hydrants, then 5 crosswalks, then 5 buses, including one bus from the rear that was totally indistinguishable from an RV from the rear. And then i waited too long to post and had to do 8 traffic lights and 3 vehicles.
Except that means the “for short” doesn’t apply since .org is the complete thing and not a shortening. Besides, the org suffix isn’t limited to charitable groups.
The TWINES are 1-1, right about where you want to be at this point in the season.
@Nancy (9:58) re "fun slog": One high-school summer, we canoed and camped for two weeks in the Quetico Provincial Park (the Canadian side of the Boundary Waters). Some of the foot-path portages, where we toted our canoes and packs between lakes, were the very APPOSITE (sic, though perhaps never used before in this sense) of "fun slogs" -- I was walking on a tree trunk to get over a swampy area, slipped, and went knee-deep in the mire. I was carrying the canoe on a wet, lichen-covered granite (gneiss) hillside, slipped, and sent the canoe toppling. At the end of a portage around a waterfall, I went to put the canoe back into the water and went in with it. Our old map advertised one portage as 16 rods (easy, 256 feet). But the lake on the other side had dried up, and in the end it was over two miles, half of it through tall grass where the lake should have been. We saw five MOOSE over the course of that trip. We caught so many fish.
@Nancy reminded me why I am familiar with "compote". "Bei di negidim, ist matamim a gut bissl compote" For the rich, dessert is a nice bit of compote. (From the folksong Lomir alle zingen.) When I just now checked out the lyrics, that line isn't there! Instead, of compote, it's tsimes (a sweet stew). Theodore Bikel, in his great recording of Jewish Folk Songs, used the "compote" lyric, and his version is the one I always listen to. Perhaps "tsimes" will appear in a future puzzle??
ARB was fine, apposite I probably learned when studying for SATs. "onlay" is just plain incorrect. I knew it must be "dome" but RCA dime makes as much sense as onlay. I agree, poorly edited. The rest of it was okay. I know almost nothing about baseball, but found sacrifice easily as well as the hidden team names.
I like NYT Sunday puzzles no matter what, but this mistake got me annoyed.
This went faster than usual for me. I liked learnng the term "eargasm." But I take issue with TOILET BAG. Who on earth uses that term???
No joy in my Mudville today, just a slog for a non-fan. Surprisingly, I know all these team names.
@Z, thanks for the explanation, people involved in arbitrage are mostly called traders. I will file this made up answer away.
Blob, but I saw grayscale immediately after I entered the second b.
Had "let lie" and it took a few scans of the puzzle to find it (as usual, I hadn't really looked at the down clue) and change lie to die before the app told me I was finished.
What was really weird about The Wonder Years was they lived in some town in America where nobody talked about, let alone fought about, the war in Vietnam. Some kind of Potemkin village I guess.
Maude was, and remains, a great and topical show. It's unfortunate it's still topical, but we are humans so, you know, "intelligent" while being quite incapable of learning from our mistakes. Interesting, that.
Okay, I apologize...I'm wrong. To find out, I needed to go to a dental site. Onlays do exist. They cover the cusp of a tooth, where an inlay fits beneath it. Inlays save more of the tooth, and are more expensive. I thought "onlays were called veneers. I guess not. So perhaps "oar" instead of padde is the only clue that's actually incorrect.
Apposite? Really? DNF because of that stupid word 😧
The problem with that is that the clue says it is short for something. (Dot)ORG is the whole thing, not an abbreviation.
A person might say “well, org clearly refers to the word ORGANIZATION, but then you lose the on-line tie-in and get back to the original beef that organizations, unless of a special type, don’t refer to non-profits.
I don't believe there was a WAF (Women's Air Force). There was a civilian Women's Army Auxiliary Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) early in the war, which was later in the war absorbed into the Army as the WAC (Woman's Air Corps).
My mother-in-law was an early WAAC pilot. Growing up on a farm in western Pennsylvania, she was a very strong personality, who with two other young women got pilot training and bought their own airplane with money earned by selling tickets for rides with barnstormers in the '30s.
She did basic pilot training for half her enlistment in Alabama, then advanced/instrument training in Texas until her unit was disbanded late in 1944.
For a short period before she got married she was a stewardess with a regional NJ airline that was one of the predecessors of United, I think. Her favorite stories were about the times in stormy cloudy weather that she was called up into the cockpit and one of the male pilots had to back to the passenger cabin, serving from her drinks tray.
Another of the inequities to women was that they did not qualify for military pensions as did males at some qualifying age, for many years. I think that a woman Senator later made a big cause about this issue, and she did get a pension then, but no back-pay.
She met my father-in-law in Texas, where he was a Lieutenant in the Army Communications Corps, training for the invasion of Japan. (I don't recall why an army man was assigned to the Pacific, where the marines held sway; maybe the Marines didn't do communications?) Anyway, it was fortunate that the Japanese surrendered before a land invasion was necessary ... Both for the Allies AND the Japanese.
As to the puzzle, it was a bit more difficult for me than most Sundays, dunno why since OFL and several other posters found it easy. I certainly know the names of all the teams. Sad that my Red Sox didn't make it, nor our nemeses the Yankees, but they couldn't be made to embed in longer fill. Oh, well ...
@David11:02am --
You're right, of course, that arbitragers (arbitrageurs) do enact trades.
But they are a small subset, trading Identical offering pairs on different exchanges where there is a price gap ... letting them to buy low on one exchange while simultaneously selling higher on the other exchange, profiting on the difference.
Toilet bag? Really?
Right on
A home run.
Thought the clever theme more than offset the crosswordese. And I’m not even a baseball fan. Though I have been to CASTRO STREET.
...And if you slipped on that tree trunk and "went knee-deep into the mire", @Birchbark (10:47), what on earth do you think would have happened to slippery-footing-challenged-throughout-the-entire-extent-of-my-life moi?
(BTW, was that the moment when you became "Birchbark" -- not only the blog's resident philosopher but the blog's resident Renaissance Man?) What you describe so colorfully (and don't miss his post, everyone) is precisely the reason that I maintain there is no such thing as a "fun slog." For me, there would have been absolutely nothing fun about the misadventure you chronicle.
FWIW, I once dated a man very much like you -- someone I was always convinced was born in the wrong century. What he loved most: fording rivers, schlepping the heaviest of gear (he weighed about 143 pounds soaking wet); sleeping in hammocks; scaling unscalable crags; helicopter skiing in areas that no human foot had ever trod; and, of course, doing his own hunting and fishing for all measure of edible sustenance. "Meat doesn't miraculously arrive in the store wrapped in cellophane," he would say when I protested vociferously against what I perceived to be his indefensibly callous love of hunting.
But, unlike me, he wasn't in the least judgmental. He once commented on my lack of adventurism and unwillingness to undergo harsh conditions thusly: "In nature, there are migratory animals and territorial animals. Both have a vital place in the scheme of things. And you are obviously a territorial animal." It was surely the kindest thing anyone has ever said about my decided preference for the safe, the comfortable, and the familiar. And what he said has actually helped me to be a lot more accepting of -- and a lot less apologetic for -- my own predilections.
The Tigers will be tough to watch this year.
*I led the AL in hitting in 1961.
Loved it. Fun. But I don’t have a head cold!
OK, everybody pay attention! Somebody (maybe @kitshef?) told me this a few weeks ago, and it works. If you are being besieged by Captcha, DO NOT CLICK the "I am not a robot" box. Instead, just click "publish." Seems really stupid, but there it is.
I'm here late, so I'll talk about FLY ROD, my casting choice as well. I thought it might be a bit elitist, since fly fishers tend to think they're better than everyone else -- but it's just a choice, so that's OK. I learned to cast flies from my ex's late father, a wonderful man. He would never fish with anything but a fly, but he would take out the grandchildren and have them fish with worms. Once he was showing my son, about 5 at the time, how to do it, and inadvertently caught a rainbow trout; he was very embarrassed, as that is very much not done.
@Z and others, I did once see ARB used with this meaning in a Doonesbury cartoon, but that was years ago. Much more recently, a friend's son used to do it, but called himself a 'day trader.' (He was working an an office across from the World Trade Center when it came down. Following the instructions they got, he started to run and didn't stop running until he was in Brooklyn. He took about 6 months off and made a career switch to teaching school.)
I had fun with the theme, but it was way too easy. I like the idea about not having shaded/circled squares, and/or not having a note.
Dugout canoes, ain't they oargasmic?
@jberg
I think the "just click "publish" trick only works if you're blue.
Ugh. This puzzle was terrible. I am vehemently apathetic to baseball, and while the themers were pretty easy to figure out, as was the revealer, the answers were god-awful. First off, MEAT SAUCE and SCRUB SUITS? I get that meat sauce is a thing, but it just sounds like the least enticing way to top a pasta. SCRUB SUITS I know as "scrubs." Pretty sure nobody says "scrub suits."
Then the fill: something about having Drake as your RAP STAR makes me cringe a little. I guess he counts, but it just sounds like an old person straining to come up with a rapper. ALIENEE makes me want a clue like, "Recipient of an extraterrestrial?" And then, as everyone else said, ORGS is a non-thing. I work at an ORG, and I had to really think to figure out what this was talking about. And then RCADOME I had zero chance of getting. I like sports, but I do not pay any attention whatsoever to the names of the venues where teams play. It's such an esoteric piece of knowledge, and feels like such a masculine knowledge-oriented clue. What a turn-off.
Ugh.
I'm a nurse and have never once called our apparel a "scrub suit." However, being a newer NYT subscriber and puzzle doer, I'm happy to finish with correct answers. So if scrub suits and Utahns makes me better, I'm all for it.
@Nancy (12:28) -- Thanks for the kind words. To be fair, it's easy to say "fun" decades after the slog itself. There were some swear words involved at the time, but also laughter.
As centuries go, I think this one is APPOSITE enough if you look at it right (cf. @Teedmn (9:46)).
Lifelong female baseball fanatic, and I agree absolutely with your statement.
I don’t believe you finish puzzles as quickly as you say you do. You have to be held back by typos and other snags. And dump these young fill-ins for you. They have no depth of knowledge. Get someone who remembers all these clues that skew older.
@Norm Cash*.
You were always one of my Fav's. It was sad when you fell off the pier and drowned at Beaver Island in Lake Michigan. We're still waiting for a team anywhere near as good as your 60's teams.
Elaine, "Boy, I'm really starting to dislike the Drake"
Jerry, "..hate the Drake"
@jberg: Wow, just wow. Though not a blue-namer, I usually get no problems with reCAPCHA, and I guess my password is stored in some file on my computer. But I will try your trick when I need to.
The WAACS or WACS were the Women's [auxiliary] Army Corps. The WAVES in the Navy, and the WAF (Women'd Air Force I guess) in the Army AIR CORPS, later the US Air Force.
ARBs are most active when there are proposed corporate mergers. Uncertainty whether the deal will go through creates some gap in the relative prices of the merger partners, and the ARBs try to take advantage of it.
@Karl Grouch - I think row boats would be oargasmic. Dugout canoes need a good paddle, so they strike me more as just a little kinky.
@jberg and @JC66 - I think Blogger is accepting that robots don’t have google accounts, so being blue is proof enough.
I see some people remember the word. At 11 letters with a B and a G I doubt that I will ever need ARBITRAGEUR to solve a puzzle. Although that U makes it a prime candidate for an oversized runtz puzzle.
Top of the 7th and they got a runner to third. Will the Tigers score their 3rd run of the season in the 35th inning of the season?
I am a lifelong (well, for as long as I can recall anyway which goes back to preschool) baseball fanatic. Everything about it draws me into the drama and fun from the neighborhood’s variant forms with invisible runners, bases made of found objects and trees to the edge-of-the-seat-heart pounding drama of a professional perfect game. I LOVE BASEBALL!
At the age of six, I stood in line at school with my (male) classmates on Summer Pewee League signup day and was inconsolable when the man at the table laughed at me! At first he said, “Honey, your brother will have to come sign up for himself, but you can take this home for him and have his mom or dad sign it and he can bring it in by Friday.,” and he handed me the paperwork. I told him that I wanted to play and several of my friends in line vouched for me and told the man that I was really good for a “little kid” (this from their very old ages of maybe 8 or 9). Pompous Man then just laughed and said “Honey (ugh! AGAIN with the demeaning crap), girls don’t play baseball.” I was devastated but...I had the paperwork in my now sweatily-angry and very stubborn hot little hand!
So, I went home and asked Gran to help me fill it out so when Mom and Dad got home one could sign it. I remember this few days still as if it were yesterday, now sixty plus years later. Gran said in her kindest voice, “You are going to change the world someday, but I don’t think it is today.” She advised me not to continue because it would disappoint me. I argued that if I did t try, we wouldn’t know, and she relented, filled it out and gave it back.
My folks always ALWAYS urged us to expand our minds, reach for the stars, work hard in school because we had the unique opportunity to do anything we want. The mantra evidently had some limits of which my six year old self was unaware.
Dad got home first that disappointing day. I barely gave him time to put down his briefcase before I jammed the application at him yelling “Sign this! Sign this!” You all know what happened. It was not yet 1960. “Girls don’t play baseball.” PERIOD. No amount of begging, crying, wheedling, or yelling recriminations would work. Evidently I could do whatever I could convince “them” I should be PERMITTED to do. What a crock. But I still love the game and am so grateful for the boys in my neighborhood who never ever said I couldn’t play. They simply stuck to neighborhood rules- if you can play, you can play. Just don’t make the fam “un-fun.”
This is the first opening week without my dear like-minded baseball fanatic husband, but I have adhered to all of our traditions and am so glad it’s finally opening week! I had hoped for a baseball themed puzzle today and got one!
I got that the theme had to do with baseball from ASPIRATES and MEATSAUCE and didn’t need the instructions to fill in SACRIFICE so in that respect the theme didn’t really come together for me, but so what? The rest of the puzzle kicked me in the hindquarters. I was not even in the cheap seats in the proverbial ballpark, but after a couple hours of on again-off again. I did finish. And that’s a good thing. My streak is still alive.
And the Cubs are playing in just a bit!
For comparison, the Dodgers have scored 34 runs in just 25 innings so far.
Did not know the words ALIENEE or ONLAY, but that didn't slow me down. At first I had FLY BOY instead of FLY ROD. I was maybe thinking casting backup dancers or something...like "fly girls" or maybe b-boys. Don't know where my brain initially went--not to rods and reels, though.
Fishing, like sports, is something I'll probably never fully appreciate.
Rex: I'm sorry to hear you didn't score in those two games, next time you absolutely must try harder if you want to win.
An OAR could be a "dugout propeller", given the right equipment. Several companies make what is called a forward-facing rowing system. Here's a video of one of these systems in action on boats that have similar dimensions to a dugout.
@Anoa Bob
Yeah, but no one in human history has ever been stuck up Sh*t's Creek without an OAR.
I once found stadium (and other sports venue) names worthwhile trivia. And yeah, I’m kind of a guy. Nowadays though, where everything has a corporate name...ugh. Bite me, sports teams everywhere. I couldn’t be less interested in your stupid arenas’ names.
@CDilly52 (2:50) -- Sounds to me like MLB might have missed its chance at the first female Jackie Robinson. Grade-school boys are not exactly famous for welcoming girls onto the baseball field. For them to have welcomed you as they did, you must have been pretty damned good! Kudos for sticking to your guns and pursuing your passion as far as it was possible back then. Too bad you were prevented from finding out just how far you might actually have been able to go.
Having seen people with leprosy during my Peace corps service in Cameroon and again visiting Kalaupapa National Historic Park I learned that “leper” is a derogatory term (see UK leprosy mission website).
@VictorS, I did my Peace Corps service in the Bas Uele region of North East DRC. The only aid worker in my areas worked for The Father Damian Society which treated both Hansen’s disease (leprosy) and tuberculosis so I had the same thought about how the term LEPER is often used.. Tuberculosis is far more contagious and deadly.
@JC66. Just got back from delivering the dog collars I make for the sweet pups that belong to the homeless. I always feel good when I see happy faces. BUT, I have to tell you that your "stuck up Sh*t's Creek without an Oar" had me roar with laughter.
Thanks. ;-)
Yes! Canoes are paddled, not rowed.
@JC66 I missed your oar comment. Seltzer went up my nose when I noticed it.
@CDilly52, I second what Nancy said
Fair amount to quibble with, in this fairly easy Sunday... onlay? Scrub suits?
Whatever...
It's just a puzzle.
My only quibble that I feel like writing regards eargasm. Trying to get my kids into puzzling with me but don't want to explain that one. Yes there are some adult themes at times but.... Dont want them googling that....
@GILL I & @Aketi
Glad I could make you laugh. ;-)
@LMS - How do UNC alumnae feel about the northerners from MSU ousting the carpetbaggers from Duke?
@CDilly52 - Hand up for endorsing @Nancy4:43.
Agreed about not caring, bu At least you have a chance to guess stadium names now: mega corporation you’ve heard of + dome, field, stadium, etc. = name of stadium
Pretty sure nob is slang for something else. Not the first time I've seen this clue and answer in a crossword, but I hope it's the last time.
I kinda liked this puzzle, maybe because I love baseball too. So happy to see the METS in there. But I learned NOTHING NEW. zzzzzzz
Scrubsuits? Never heard the suit part ever.
Never heard of a Hasp.
Had wily for oily, inlay for onlay.
Never heard of the RCA dome (who cares anyway). Sorry to see alienee again. Bah
Also, tilted in Stilton =leant? O k a y
Have a great week Rex
Although the puzzle has it's weak moments it seems odd that no one is giving Andrew Rides any credit for his construction skills.
To drop one letter from each team name--in order--and then come up with 'sacrifice' is pretty terrific, to my way of thinking.
I usually appreciate the remarks left here but this week it seems like a lot of kvetching from almost everyone . . . Cheer up folks . . .
I was a big NIN fan so easy for me. Also, a little tidbit of info for the recent Captain Marvel film. The main character’s t-shirt is a reproduction made by wardrobe. They couldn’t find an original suitable for filming.
I will admit to being a fan of playing sports but follow none. I am possibly the only Korean male that detests golf. That said, I found my limited knowledge enough to finish this puzzle fairly easily. That does not speak to the difficulty of the theme. The grid seemed awkward and forced in places; lacking the fluidity if a really good challenging puzzle. While there were many old crossword standbys, there was no geography nor any direction clues (my least favourite type). Overall, I was expecting harder (due to the theme) and was disappointed.
Maybe it comes from having to take religion while in Catholic school, lepers being outcasts was familiar to me.
ISEE TWINS
DON'TSHOUT OAR CHASER, son,
we ARENOT PIRATES OAR felons,
we're DEALING INPERSON
with ACUTE PERI MELONS.
--- FRED_SAVAGE
While it didn't exactly sizzle, I don't think this puzzle deserves the full weight of OFC, Our Fearless Curmudgeon. It does know what it wants to be when it grows up: a league of teams after they SACRIFICE a letter to the word SACRIFICE. THISISIT. Since he did not see APPOSITE to include my beloved Phillies, Mr. Ries loses valuable points.
What is an ONLAY? I really wished that RCADiME was a thing... bLOB/GLOB and TUg/TUB caused single-letter blots--or, GLOBs. TIA Carrere wins DOD, with honorable mention to our own Jacky ROSEN. Par.
Didn't have a note. Didn't need it. This was like a Friday WSJ contest puz with a meta answer as the final "solve". If you haven't tried one yet, you really should. You can still get 'em free and you will probably recognize the constructor's name.
Does anyone here change their own tires? They're not WHEELNUTs, they're lug NUTS. Can't believe no mention of it.
I have indeed been on CASTROSTREET.
I'd give NANCY PELOSI a yeah baby INPERSON.
A little extra wih today's puz, just for CHITS and giggles.
ANGELS & PADRES
A LOTTA UTAHNS ISEE
ARE into the GOSPEL, here's why:
TELEVANGELISM's NOT free;
SACRIFICE OAR LET'SDIE.
--- OREL SACHS
This took me a while to do, even after I got SACRIFICE before any of the team names, and so *almost* sunk to the "slog" level. However, knowing that the extra letters were in order was a LOTTA help. I don't think I could have solved this as a meta.
Anyway, the theme was engaging and kept my interest throughout. As for the fill, I thought it was fine, EEL notwithstanding. These Sunday puzzles routinely amaze me. It's a feat just to construct one, and if it is unique and fun, even more amazing.
As for baseball, I used to be a big fan, but today's game seems to be a shell of its former self with multiple pitching changes, pitchers taking forever to deliver, and almost every hitter swinging for the home run. The game needs some rule changes to speed up play or it will continue to lose fans.
Sure too9k me long enough, but I finally finished.
Sort of.
I, too, never heard of ONLAY - mine was "IN" so my dome was dimed. For a dnf. I agree with @Spacey - RCA Dime rocks!
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for the pitcher to pitch!
This puzzle was a messy slog. Only persevered because of the lure of the the baseball theme.
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