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Bo's'n's quarters / WED 4-10-19 / Computer image file format / Baseball rarities nowadays / World capital at 9350 feet
Wednesday, April 10, 2019
Constructor: Alan Arbesfeld
Relative difficulty: Easy? Easy-Medium? (solved on clipboard, not really sure)
Theme answers:
- WON ON POINTS (1) (17A: Was barely victorious, as in boxing)
- TOO DARN HOT (2) (26A: Cole Porter song from "Kiss Me, Kate")
- FOR A CHANGE (4) (48A: As something different to do)
- ATE LIKE A PIG (8) (57A: Opposite of "consumed daintily")
nounnoun: focsle
• • •
I guess there were a couple other answers that gave me slight pause. I know the term BITMAP, but I don't really know what it is, so I got it easily enough, but I wrote it in thinking "well I've heard of this thing ..." rather than "ooh, I know this!" Also, no idea who TESSA Thompson is. Which, now that I look her up, seems impossible. She's been in a lot of stuff. I really gotta start watching "Westworld"...
Bullets:
- 25D: Forest giants (SEQUOIAS) — wanted REDWOODS, which is accurate and fits. But that "Q" was easy to pick up from QUOTAS (31A: Target numbers)
- 7D: World capital at 9, 350 feet (QUITO) — speaking of "Q"s ... I always hesitate with this clue because I think it might be LAPAZ or SUCRE (both Bolivian capitals, both way way up there, elevationwise)
- 43D: Lonely place (THE TOP) — Had THE and filled the remaining spaces (mentally) with all kinds of stuff (THE BAR? THE HOP? THE MET?) before getting TOP from the crosses.
- 58D: ___ of Good Feelings (ERA) — LOL this reminds me olde-timey crosswords, when this ERA apparently meant something to someone, and also when this ERA would be used to clue the terrible partial ERAOF. To Will's credit, he's only had ERAOF in his puzzles three times in 25 years. Weirdly, pre-Shortz editors clued it "ERA of Good Feeling," singular. The plural "feelings" version appears to be more correcter.
- 49D: A Lion, but not a Tiger, informally (NFLER) — ban NFLER, NBAER, NHLER, NLER, ALER and all dumb sports -ERs. Also, go Tigers! (baseball!)
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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73 comments:
Rex – I’m so glad I’m not the only one who can’t tell my homophones from my homonyms. Whew.
Like Rex, it took me a while to see what was going on; I kept trying to tie the theme to baseball. But when I realized it was just doubling each head of a themer, I smiled.
I was proud to spell SEQUOIA with its little vowel party correctly the first time. Never considered “redwoods.”
FOCSLE went right in, but, hey, I worked on a boat. Very common word on our little tub of a salmon tender. It’s short for forecastle. Your day is now complete.
Kept looking back at the finished grid and parsing DO GOODER as DOG OODER. Hah. Say, my dog Owen has been his feed and probably just needs to be ooded. Know any respectable dog ooder around here?
From yesterday – I inadvertently started a discussion on speed-solving vs. leisure-solving. I really was just trying to understand why my experience is so often the opposite of Rex’s. But, @Nancy – I agreed with everything you said up until. . . “So when valuing speed in an endeavor, maybe we should stick to running, swimming and cycling.” I don’t think we get to be the boss of what people value. Speed-solvers derive their own satisfaction, and who’s to say that their way to this end is Wrong? That’s like saying if you don’t eat an Oreo the proper way (read My Way – screwing it apart and scraping the cream off with your teeth first), you should just stick to eating Chips Ahoys.
Played like a usual Wednesday here. For some reason I thought yesterday was Wednesday and so did my wife. It wasn’t until looking at a puzzle named Tuesday that I knew the truth, but I had a hard time convincing my wife. Such are the mornings of a retired geezer.
@LMS
Great comment about how people have different metrics for success.
I like that Rex now sometimes solves on paper, the way we have always done it.
I am a teacher like LMS, and adore and identify with her anecdotes about student behavior.
Our department group solves at lunch on paper. Makes for a convivial and faster solve, especially on Thursday and Friday.
Re: the puzzle. Enjoyed it, but I like all crossword puzzles. Never think about rating them. I view them as problems to be solved. Once solved, I move on to another, or do more important things.
I loved seeing the inclusion of ANN Patchett (one day her last name will show up in a NYT puzzle!), whose novels I find very moving, filled with heart. She is also an ardent advocate of independent bookstores, and owns one herself, in Nashville.
Still a little hung over from yesterday's puzzle, so I couldn't help but notice that today's has, in addition to two palindrome answers (OVO, AHA), at least 10 emordnilaps, including the four-letter ETNA and the five letter TESSA (the others are threes).
OK, I didn't think it sparkled, but it had enough of a glow to be fun for me. DOUBLEHEADERS is a nice term but it makes me think of baseball which I a)love and b)am trying not to think about right now, living where I do.
It's more fun seeing FOCSLE written with all its apostrophes.
Brown ales are fine but give me an IPA, please.
Also, there's granddaughter TESSA again! She's getting popular.
Fun enough for a Wednesday. Thanks AA.
I enjoyed doing this puzzle, but I definitely agree with Rex about the theme: As a baseball fan, it left me cold -- uninspiring. That said, I just enjoy the few minutes of quietude with pen in hand and paper in front of me -- along with a cup of tea. Plus I always enjoy reading Rex's commentaries -- whether they're constructive criticism or praise.
A REBUS on a Wednesday. Fancy that.
Liked it. A little more resistance than an average Wednesday, and I really like that all the homophones are three letters.
Opposite corners MR T and ICE, who is also a Mr. -T.
Clue for WON ON POINTS not particularly accurate. Any boxing match that is not a KO or a draw is WON ON POINTS.
Is TESSA becoming the new ENO?
@Rex - "Do some constructors get preferential treatment because they've been at it for so long?"
YES. Of course, Yes.
I'm sure there are way better rejections out there.
Homonym, homophone, homograph: A homophone ("same" + "sound") are two words that sound the same but have different meanings. A homograph ("same" + "something written") are words that are spelled the same but have different meanings.
A homonym ("same" + "name") can be one of two things: with a strict definition, it is words that are both homophones and homographs, like "tire" (the rubber covering around a wheel) and "tire" (to be in need of rest.) Even more strictly, some require that the words have different etymologies.
However, some people use a broader definition, though, that is synonymous with "homophone." I personally use the word in the narrower sense as, well, we've already got the perfectly good word "homophone" to describe words that sound the same but have different meanings. In my world (and according to many others), all homonyms are homographs and homophones, but all homographs and homophones are not homonyms. But, yes, it's common to come across and be taught the "homonym" = "homophone" definition.
Anyhow, back to puzzle: I agree that yesterday's and today's should have been switched around. I finished this at half yesterday's time and 2/3 of my normal Wednesday. (But I don't agree that yesterday's puzzle was weak. I loved it, but nix the note and have the solver figure it out as they go along. Luckily, I didn't see the note.) Only tough part for me was the AQ-BA/-NN cross, but I guessed the shared "A" correctly.
Fine puzzle, easy. Set a Wednesday record.
REBUS in 1 Across was just a feint, I guess.
I don't think the term DO-GOODER implies naivete. Most DO-GOODERs I know are serious and earnest, but I wouldn't call them naive.
Rex may not have timed himself, but my app timed me without my consent and then let me know that this Wednesday may have been way too easy. The solving experience was pretty fleeting today. For a moment I thought we might be dealing with a themeless, but then I realized that one and one make two and there you go. Fizzle.
Here’s my theory. Yesterday’s puzzle was so outstanding that today’s was a “sacrifice”. Isn’t that a baseball term, btw? As long as almost any puzzle was going to disappoint in comparison, Will threw us one that was sure to go plop.
On the upside, REBUS was an excellent start. I’ve gotten used to thinking of it just as a bunch of teeny letters crammed into an eensy space. I really liked FOCSLE. It’s a familiar term that looked wrong but right when I spelled it. A bit of indecision is a good thing. We don’t see AQABA or QUITO very often in puzzles. It was a change to give them some thought because I’m quite sure I’ll never visit. I fell for redwood before SEQUOIA even though I suspected it was too convenient. I knew there was this other word but I needed the Q to get my memory working. I’d prefer to visit a SEQUOIA than those other above mentioned Q joints, no offense to the natives. I don’t do altitude or deep sea diving on the advice of a physician, but I’ll hug a tree anytime. I remembered “AD Age” but not ADWEEK. “TOODARNHOT” was an unknown but I’ll give it a listen in a minute. It can’t be bad if Porter wrote it.
The puzzle chugged along, but it would have been kinder to run it before yesterday’s tour de force.
RHYME before REBUS. Otherwise a breeze. It amuses me that even if you put in the wrong letters or spell a word incorrectly the gewgaw that magically appears on the app version and says “Halfway done!” still shows up. I agree with Rex, these NFLER answers are dull, stupid and an insult to the people who do the puzzle. Enough already. AQABA made me chuckle because that one time I submitted a puzzle I used that word (which was a rallying cry in Lawrence of Arabia) so I could get a Q in my pangram. I’m not surprised it was rejected. But I am surprised to see it here on a Wednesday. Loved the clue for AGEISTS. I went in for a job interview not so long ago and they said we are looking for someone “a bit more active.” It wasn’t until I got home that I realized they said that because they thought I was too old. I’m as active as the next guy although I may not jump through hoops for a job paying 9 bucks an hour. A while later I went for another position at a museum and they said “we are looking for someone fresh out of college.” Isn’t that ageism, too? Although judging by what I read in the paper, some of these kids fresh from college need the job more than me to pay back their parents for getting them into school in the first place.
@OFL on ERA of Good Feelings: “this reminds me [of] olde-timey crosswords, when this ERA meant something to someone.” Yes, those 1960s, when the solvers were recalling their youths spent in the 1820s! The term means something to people who know some standard American political history, whether they lived in the 20th or 21st century.
Bizarre week. If you’re old and retired like me, you may use random clues to figure what day it is. This week, based on the NYT xword puzzles, went Tuesday, Thursday, Monday (so far).
When I saw 1A and quickly filled in REBUS, I thought that the constructor was making me a wonderful promise of all the goodies that lay ahead. Alas, it was not to be. But a girl can dream.
What we had instead was a perfectly respectable puzzle that offered little in the way of surprise, excitement or challenge. AGEISTS (41A) was nicely clued. Other than that, I yawned at the theme, most of the fill, and most of the clues. But the clue/answer for 43D made me remember -- from a long, long time ago -- the best New Yorker cartoon I ever saw. Let me share it with you:
We're in an office and it's dark outside. A well-dressed executive is standing at the window, his back to us, looking out -- shoulders slumped, hands clasped behind his back. A tired-looking cleaning woman is behind him, on her knees, mopping up. She's speaking. The caption is: "I understand sir, truly I do, but it's also lonely at the bottom.
Ah, 52A. FOCSLE (fo’c’s’le) is one of a long list of nautical words whose common pronunciation is pretty far afield from its actual written form (“forecastle”), as is bo’s’n / bosun / boatswain. More from the American Heritage Dictionary’s usage note on “boatswain”:
Usage Note: The word boatswain is pronounced as a single word with two syllables (bō’sən). People with sea legs have a long tradition of spelling the word as bosun, bo's'n, and bos'n to reflect the salty pronunciation. This of course has not prevented landlubbers from using the incorrect two-word pronunciation (bōt’swān′). Many other nautical words have similarly tricky shipboard pronunciations, including bowline, pronounced (bō’lĭn); forecastle, pronounced (fōk’səl) and sometimes spelled fo'c's'le; gunwale, pronounced (gŭn’əl) and also sometimes spelled gunnel; mainsail, pronounced (mān’səl); and topgallant, pronounced (tə-găl’ənt). With the exception of gunwale, however, all of these terms can be correctly pronounced as if they were two words.
So an apt clue, if perhaps a bit obscure for a Wednesday puzzle.
(FWIW, Chapter 40 of “Moby-Dick” is entitled “Midnight, Forecastle”.)
Hey All !
Never parsed the theme. Zoom! right over my head. Was trying to see two words as heads? in each themer. Then the WON ON, maybe repeated letters? But that didn't work with the rest. So I said Screw It, and QUITo trying to figure it out, and came here. Ah ha, DOUBLing HEADs of the themers. Got it.
Even SADDER was my famous one-letter DNF. SEQUOIAi/FOCiLE, thinking that I didn't know you pluralized SEQUOIA with an I. ERG, apparently you don't.
Writeovers, sixty-TWICE (wrong hand), MUtIS-MUNIS (mutuals?), lESSA-TESSA (how many TESSAs are there?) WON by-WON ON, PArROL-PATROL (the ole brain conflating parole, patrol, and probably payroll.)
Agree with the swap YesterPuz with this one. Maybe Will is just shaking things up. Trying to change the status QUOTAS. Har.
@kitshef 7:34
LOLed at your cross-reference MRTs. Nice!
I did like this puz, BTW. Even though the DOUBLing escaped me. DUBLIN. :-) And I also like MOUNDS. Candy and otherwise. (Why, I never...!) EROICA indeed.
COLD ONES IN AN HOUR (well, maybe later...)
RooMonster
DarrinV
Disagreed with OFL on almost everything this time. Definitely easy, only seconds off my PB for Wednesday. I thought the clue for DOUBLEHEADER was just right--why insist on making it harder for people who aren't way into baseball to get the revealer? In addition to niceties pointed out by previous commenters, I liked that the "header words" were all three letters, and that another "double feature" (something else that's now a rarity) could be the existence of their homonymous doppelgangers. Would have been nice to see some clever reference to "powers of two/too", but ya can't have everything...
Hate to be the first to get political today (though I admit that following and participating in the exchanges here--in a respectful way--has become somewhat of a guilty pleasure for me), but I want to say I'm extremely disappointed by the Israeli election outcome. I have long and deep affection for the country, cemented by a 7-month stay there right out of college, but am increasingly distressed by the direction its leadership has taken. Ben Netanyahu was a classmate of my first wife in graduate school at MIT, and we were pleased to get to know him shortly after our sojourn in Israel. He was clearly a young man destined for greatness, without evidence then of hard right views, making the direction he's taken since then all the more troubling. My ex attributed his political evolution to grief and anger connected with the death of his older brother, the hero (really truly heroic) of the Entebbe airport rescue.
The puzzle in the newspaper has a REAL rebus for 1A, that is a picture of an eyeball for the letter I.
What @Peter P said. -phone=sound, -graph=graphic, -nym=word. Close enough for solving crosswords.
Agree with Rex. This is a whitebread puzzle.
Tigers update - they were briefly in first place, getting fans hopes up a wee bit, until said fans double check the run-differential and sees it is a +1 (now a -5 I think). You can go 6-2 with a +1 run differential in the short run, but it's going to be a long summer if they can't score more runs.
@LMS and @everyone else - regarding solving speed and agreeing with @LMS... I've said this before and I will surely say it again, the only people who post about solving speed all the time are people who "don't care about solving speed." If you all don't care why does Rex mentioning it bug you so much? It's a single metric that is a good surrogate for a puzzles difficulty. A Saturday that takes me 15 minutes is much easier than one that takes me 30 or 45 or 60 minutes. Personally, I just don't buy the whole "Rex's speed affects his liking" hypothesis. There is a difference between a slog and a challenge, and the challenge might even take one longer. You might disagree about whether a puzzle was a slog or not, but I shake my head whenever Rex calls a puzzle sloggy and you all scream about his solving-speed (and I say "you all" because it is never just one post, it's always 5 or 10 or 1,007 comments).
AA is prolific. I bet he did this puzzle in his sleep. To borrow a @pabloism: zzzzzzzzzzz.
A bit on the dullsville side.
I always go around looking for a smile or two, or to borrow a @lorenism.....I sniffed around. I did find a few that brought back some memories.
I remember seeing "Kiss Me, Kate" at London's Old Vic Theatre back in the late '80's Our daughter was about 3 years old and was a joy to take everywhere. I wanted her to see the theatre and maybe remember it. Getting off at Waterloo, walking with her hand in little hand to watch a lovely musical. It was fun. I ask her now if she remember it...NO. All she remembers about London then is eating scones with fresh cream.
Then we have ATE LIKE A PIG. I see that and all I can think of us Frump using that phrase on Rosie. He thought he WON ON POINTS. Such a gentleman.
@Quasi your AGEISTS story also brought on a smile of things past. When Mexicana shut its doors, I was close to 50. I decided I would just take early retirement and the hell with everything else. Well I soon got bored. Decided to go to Kelly Girl's and look for a temp job just to keep me busy. Well, I flunked their filing test. I mean this little 21 year old fresh out of college told me I should learn the alphabet!!!! I asked her what ERA she lived in because I knew that A came before Q. She went on to tell me that I somehow didn't know that a name like AJ FOYT should be filed under AJ. I remember this because she actually told me that maybe I was "Too Old" to comprehend their system. She also told me I wasn't very good with computers and should bone up on OS-9. (sigh). I called my husband right after and he took me out to lunch at Biba's. We had a very long meal that included several martinis, lovely cheese after delicious food and a skosh of brandy at the very end. I remember saying that maybe I didn't know how to file, but I knew how to enjoy a meal that no 21 year old would ever think of doing mid -week in the late afternoon.
The theme works but doesn't really sparkle. My first thought was that the revealer should be COMPLETEGAMES, but it's tough to build theme answers around that.
FOCSLE is completely unfamiliar to me, but all good. @LMS, I thanketh you for the lesson.
Less good are VUE (model from a 10-year defunct brand), OVO (whatever) and NFLER (heard, spoken or read by no one ever, outside of crosswords). Those are primo garbage entries right there.
There have been plenty of boxing matches that were WONONPOINTS but were not at all close. Think of a 119-108 decision or thereabout. WONONPOINTS simply implies that the fight went the distance -- it says nothing about the margin of victory.
Clue for TOODARNHOT seemed to be spoon-feeding us too much. Isn't every song from "Kiss Me Kate" a Cole Porter song? It's like Beatles song from "Abbey Road".
Excellent clue for AGEISTS.
Clueless, perhaps Blindsided today
👁 for an “I” is in print edition
Is 🐑 for “you” in online version"?
@Loren -- I wasn't saying that solvers themselves aren't allowed to value their own speed. Of course they are! As you say, they're entitled to value anything they like. I, for example, value the rare beauty of my penmanship and the extraordinary attractiveness of my completed grid. It's just that I don't expect anyone else in the entire UNIVERSE to value it. My comment yesterday was sparked by two people who described the fastest solvers as puzzle "pros", which, by inference, relegates leisurely solvers to being amateurs. And not only don't I think that's fair, I don't remotely even think it's true. It would be like asking Einstein how fast he came up with his Theory of Relativity. If he took his own sweet time, does that make him dumber?
@kitshef (from yesterday) -- If I cycled, I'd go cycling with you any time. Like you, I like to smell the roses in all the activities that I do.
Baseball rarities? Threw down “complete games” without a moment’s hesitation.
This puzzle gave me a moment of stress relief. My calendar this week has an incredibly stressful meeting on Wednesday afternoon. I woke up today stressed about it. Did the puzzle and for a moment thought today was Tuesday and that I had more time to prep for the meeting. Seriously. (This was before coffee.)
Blah puzzle, but a bit eerie. I'm in Ecuador right now, heading to QUITO in a couple of days. And I'm currently reading Commonwealth by ANN Patchett.
Speed solve if you want. Leisure solve if you want. Solve digitally or on paper. Solve in pencil, pen, lip liner, who cares. Do your puzzle your way.
Finished the puzzle, but don’t understand the theme. Any help?
Today's write up is a fine one, and pretty accurate with one glaring exception. The THEME is BINARY NUMBERS, not BASEBALL as the constructor notes make very clear. How many will miss this? I certainly did.
Mr. Chen over at XWordInfo is rather more critical of the puzzle. His criticism echoes some observations I think I remember in some of this blog's write-ups. Interesting.
I too thought that COMPLETE GAMES was the answer to 35A, especially since I consider twi-night games as double headers. I only consider how many [complete] games are played in a single day, not how many times you have to pay.
Z: Maybe I was unclear yesterday, but no need to rehash. For the record, my characterization of you was in no way a criticism, just an observation. I suppose only an empty head will have no opinions, so being opinionated is a good thing. Expressing an opinion as an infallibility? Less so.
Just for the record, what we had for 1A was a picture of an eye, for an 'I'.
I enjoyed this and found it very easy, but I absolutely could not figure out the theme, even when I was finished. Fortunately, I know I can always count on Rex both the explain the theme and to tell me why I should have hated the puzzle.
@Nancy what a wonderful word depiction of a cartoon. So graphic it brought me in and made me laugh. My paper was unavailable this morning so I had to solve on my iPad which meant I was timed (28 minutes, seems slow) but had the bonus of a concluding fanfare once I finally entered the “p” which changed “snare” to “spare”. First threw in “ complete game” as a baseball rarity. I could understand that the theme involved words that sounded like numbers but didn’t get their relationship until rex explained it was a progressive doubling.
@Walter Johnson (he who still holds the record for most complete games) - hand up for dropping that answer in without hesitation. Hah!
@GILL - I can relate to your AGEIST story, but really how sad that child was in a position of some responsibility and was actually that clueless. I worked in the field of federal employment benefits for over 25 years and had a young new hire tell me how his health insurance was going to cover his ex-wife. I just smiled and told him “Hey go for it. I’ve only been doing this for 25 years so what do I know.” By the time I retired four years ago I was beginning to feel like a dusty old relic. I guess that’s how you know it’s time to hang it up. And FWIW, I’ve never been bored - not for one second. Also FWIW, I think frump often believes he wins on points. Understandable for someone so easily fooled.
@Nancy - Late last night, I posted a response to your comment on yesterday’s blog, and may I just say you nailed it again today.
I liked this puzzle but agree it was a little underwhelming with more of an oh than an aha moment. I’m not a big baseball fan and never understood how anyone could sit thru 18 innings at one stretch. (Now there’s an excellent word for a baseball themed crossword). On that subject, I don’t get Rex’s argument that DOUBLEHEADER is not baseball specific. Maybe it’s a regional thing, but out here in Royals and Cardinals country, that’s what it’s called.
Am I the only one who had to run the alphabet to get AQABA/QUITO? Apparently I need to work on my high-altitude world capitals...
Other than that, a perfectly ok puzzle. I agree with those saying it could have been a Mon/Tues.
Thanks, @GHarris (10:12). I can see that cartoon in my mind's eye as though it were yesterday.
We were typing at the same time just now, @Whatsername (10:26), but I thank you for your very nice comment, as well as for the one I didn't get a chance to thank you for yesterday. And thanks also to @JC66 for his nice comment yesterday as well.
@Nancy – I must have misunderstood you. When you wrote
”So when valuing speed in an endeavor, maybe we should stick to running, swimming and cycling.”
I totally read it as saying that anyone who values speed when solving crosswords should just give up crosswords and take up running or swimming.
My bad.
My first entry was REBUS, and I loved the puzzle from that point on. Loved the clue for WESSON, loved the answer FOR A CHANGE. And as far as I'm concerned, cluing DOUBLE HEADER as baseball, but using a different meaning for the theme answers was a feature, not a but.
I, too, would have dropped in "complete games" with no hesitation -- had I now had the crossing UNIVERSE already. I didn't even know that DOUBLE HEADERS are now a rarity.
I've never seen curry served ON RICE, though, as least if you're talking about Indian restaurants. You get your curry in one dish, and your rice in another one. You're free to mix them on your plate, but unless your curry is very mild you'll be well advised to keep them separate, so that you can take a mouthful of rice when your throat starts to burn.
Why does @Rex always post his time? Because it's one of the basic features of his blog. Why does he complain about anything that slows him down? That's another story -- I think it started when he stared to enter tournaments, where you win by being faster than everyone else.
As I recall my history (i.e., vaguely) Andrew Jackson didn't share those GOOD FEELINGS because he thought that JQ Adams had cheated him out of the presidency. He got his revenge in the next election.
As is usually the case, I find this forum more fun than the solve itself. The ageism stories alone brighten my day and the passion for language that posters exhibit make me wish to return to the classroom— well, almost. @clueless “Is 🐑 for “you” in online version"? sadly, nope, but with each new iPhone update that prospect becomes more likely....assuming that one can keep with iOS whatever.
It's nice to see that most posts today are positive with very little grousing.
@Gill, glad my ageism anecdote made you smile. I laughed out loud at your own story. I’m not sure I’d know where to put a file marked AJ Foyt myself. Except where the sun don’t shine. Do you mean Biba’s in London? I went there once in the 70s. I felt like I was in a Fred Astaire movie. So cool.
FOCSLE is a contraction of the word FORECASTLE and is sometimes spelled with the apostrophes
FO'C'SLE.
FORECASTLE (FO'C'SLE) is the forward part of the upper deck of a ship / the crew's quarters usually in a ship's bow
Westworld is okay unless you dislike totally gratuitous gore. That almost ruined it for me, but obviously some people really dig watching blood and guts like the Walking Dead. I find it tedious and garish, but I won't judge you if you like it.
Yes I will.
I seriously object to the clue on 17A. Barely victorious in boxing would be a split decision, or even a majority decision. Won on points just does not fit the bill. Yes, you might have a 3 judge decision where all the scores were 115-113, but what about a fighter who completely dominates his opponent winning every round, getting a couple of 10-8 rounds by knocking his opponent down, and wins 100-88? (For those not fans, 99% of rounds without a knockdown are scores 10-9) So that fighter is barely victorious??? I don't think so! Stupid clue by someone who does not watch boxing.
Any puzzle that includes Cole Porter's TOO DARN HOT is OK by me!
I agree with @Nancy as to any reference to speed solvers being “pros” as opposed to those who sip coffee, drink wine or God forbid solve the puzzle at my desk (on the day it comes out) while EATING my lunch. I have no interest in speeding through the grid and even if I did I’d psych myself out, get tense and probably not take much time off my solve whether or not I’m pausing to take a sip or take a bite. I definitely admire those that can speed solve...just not my cuppa. With that said, the only thing I’ve observed on occasion is that @Rex seems (to me) to judge the puzzle on a speed solver’s basis, ie “precious seconds (or nanosecond) were used to answer...”. This usually leads into a comment that sparks controversy, ie is it “a thing”, is it “dated”, who on God’s green earth would know this, etc. the Twitterati are pulled out as evidence sparking great debate.
The puzzle was just fine to me today and count me amongst those that thinks (as if it matters) that given NYT convention it should have been flipped with yesterday’s puzzle. However, I shall not call for Shortz being put out to pasture for that oversight.
Easy. Our missing Tues. puzzle? Smooth, but a bit meh, liked it more than @Rex did.
A rather mild theme today - at least I did figure out what it was after I finally saw the ATE in 57A and connected it to the WON, TOO, FOR. For some reason, I'm feeling deja vu over the theme, as if there were a similar series puzzle in the not-too-distant past. Am I wrong?
Thanks, @Nancy, for yesterday's shout-out, but my time today makes me blush for the compliment - for some reason I took an extra minute to solve this. Probably due to my hesitation in the AQABA-QUITO-BITMAP area. And wondering how to finish FOCS__. Knowing it stood for FORECASTLE should have helped me realize it wouldn't be FOCSal. Not that I entered that in the grid, but I did consider it.
Rex mentioning La Paz brought to mind an article I read in the New Yorker about a restaurant in that city. The city is built up the side of the mountain and the best neighborhoods are at the bottom. I found this quote interesting to ponder: “In the U.S. you pay for the view,” a resident told me. “Here you pay for the oxygen.”
23D should be clued, "Life, the ______ and Everything".
AA, this is a fine Wednesday puzzle - it was just upstaged by yesterday's.
I read somewhere that there are only two base words in English that contain a continuous sequence of four different vowels. For example, "continuous" doesn't count. Base word means that it doesn't get any vowels by adding on things like -ed, -ing, -es, -ies, and the like. One appears in today's grid, SEQUOIA(S). Can you guess the other?
I once submitted a baseball themed puzzle---not to the NYT---and got a rejection with the comment that it was a nice puzzle but since that theme had been done so often, I would need to "hit it out of the park" in order to get it accepted. I would rate today's offering as a bloop single.
When I was a kid, the only time we ATE LIKE A PIG at the dinner table without being scolded for eating LIKE A PIG was when we had corn on the cob. Drop on a pad of butter, add a little salt and soooooeee!
Do some constructors get preferential treatment because they've been at it for so long? I can't believe that in all the rejected puzzles made by young people or women there wasn't something more interesting than this.
Yes, it would be an improvement if the editors were more ageist, like Rex.
I thought this puzzle was rather entertaining. Didn't know FOCSLE but now I do. I do know TOO DARN HOT, however. Great song. Glad to see Tessa Thompson in the puzzle -- so good in the "Creed" movies, as well as in other stuff.
My favorite thing in today's blog: The clue for 43d is "Lonely place, so they say"; Rex has THE slotted in but can't figure out the other three letters without the crosses. Mind-bogglingly sad.
@Quasi...The Biba's I'm referring to belongs here, in Sacramento. It has weathered the ever changing restaurant business. When I came to Sacratamato, there were only 3 restaurants worthy of your money in my estimation. One (since gone) was called Aldo's. You could listen to Aldo himself play the piano at his bar section then eat wonderful pasta served by a waiter dressed in a Tux. The other was the Firehouse in Old Sacramento; it has gone through lots of chefs and I think it finally nailed a good one. Although we now have some primo eateries, Bia Caggiano still serves up some mighty fine Italian food. If you're into oogling and ogling politicians from all over, this is the place. My husband and I choose the front section by the bar so we don't have to have our meal ruined. (They sit in the back).....
@Anoa B. This is the only way one should eat corn on the cob: daintiness..... :-)
You'd think my videos are RATED R - they are not, but they never get posted. Anyway, if you want a smile, Google "Cat eating corn on the cob." It's cute. She doesn't EAT LIKE A PIG.
@Anoa Bob: Does ONOMATOPOEIA count? Somehow, QUEUE seems prettier tho, even as a non-qualifier.
Funny puztheme. Quite a bit easier than yesterday's at our house, I'd grant. And yet -- curiously -- a much more wide-open puzgrid, with only 70 words and 34 black squares. Go figure.
staff wweeject pick: AWW. Admirable weeject stacks in the NE & SW, btw.
fave fillins: FOCSLE. UNIVERSE. DOG OODER [related to ASS ORT?]. QUOTAS. SEQUOIAS. Not much desperation in the fill, surprisinly … maybe in the SCLASS + THETOP area, but they did enable FOCSLE, after all so give em a break. har
@RP: Cool write-up. Primo bullets.
Thanx, AA-meister. Sixteen = DOUBLEDATE?? Just askin.
Masked & Anonym007Us
**gruntz**
Focsle went right in having read all the Hornblower books and all the Aubrey–Maturin books by Patrick O'Brian. Liked the conceit and even ran the numbers to get "ATE". Took me a while to remember that other kind of rebus. But QUINTO and AQABA (no u!) went right in. Never considered redwoods.
I don't exactly speed solve, but since I use the NYT app my times are recorded and averaged, so it kind of sucks when it takes you twice as long to get through a Tuesday than usual. Mostly though, while yesterday was impressive it wasn't fun, today was fun.
@TomR, I agree with you on the boxing clue.
@Nancy, nice post yesterday, but I think both you and the Upper West Side Mammas would be in agreement over banning speed cycling in areas where cyclists and pedestrians intersect in the parks. One of their kids was hit by a speeding cyclist in Riverside Park and hospitalized over the weekend so cyclists speeding through the parks are in their cross hairs.
@webwinger:
The Germans called it Lebensraum. Even the Israeli press gets it.
"Suddenly we are short of space here in Israel, which has become full to capacity and needs lebensraum."
here: https://www.haaretz.com/1.5158152
Or, as the Trumpster puts it: "Our Country is FULL!"
Here's the procreation experience of the ultra-Orthodox:
"This year, the number of ultra-Orthodox Israelis rose above one million for the first time, and they now consist 12% of the population. By 2030, the ultra-Orthodox sector is expected to reach 16% of the total population, and by 2065, will make up one third of Israel’s overall population and 40% of its Jewish population. The ultra-Orthodox population is also relatively young: 58% are aged 0–19, compared with 30% of the rest of the Jewish population. Also, in recent years, there has been a decline in the fertility rate among ultra-Orthodox women, from 7.5 offspring per ultra-Orthodox woman in 2003 to 6.9 today (compared with 2.4 for other Jewish women)."
here: https://en.idi.org.il/articles/20439
7 and 1/2 kids!!! If that happens in American Black neighborhoods, what would the Trumpster say??
To Anoa Bob, 2 p.m.
How about Anoaeurism, defined as a "particular puzzle suggested by a poster on this blog, leading to a contraction of the arteries"?
Anon. i.e. Poggius
PS: don't take this as a complaint--I just needed to come up with a definition.
I am proud that I know nothing of boxing except that the barbarity exists.
@Teedmn (1:15) -- A whole extra minute today???? I don't know how you can look yourself in the mirror or hold your head up in polite society. It's a complete disgrace, that's what it is! But know that, should you have trouble getting out of bed tomorrow morning, there are some good antidepressants that might help. At least I hope they can. Still, trauma this profound is very hard to heal. Good luck to you, @Teedmn -- I'll be fervently hoping for your rapid recovery.
Seriously, girl, you are kidding us...aren't you?
@Aketi (4:11) -- I was thinking of the Tour de France, actually. As far as NYC streets and parks are concerned, I wouldn't just ban speed cycling, I would ban all cycling. I've been convinced for years that there's a bike with my name on it. It's just a question of time. Others worry about terrorism; I worry about being run down by a bike. My favorite way to curse the reckless, lawless biker who narrowly misses me as he flouts four traffic rules at the same time: "Jail's too good for you!"
As soon as I recognized the theme, I couldn’t wait to read your comments! I thought you’d be so happy after yesterday’s disappointment, I know how much you love baseball. And focsle and sequoias added to the fun! On my last flight, my steward was so disappointed when I ate my Mounds without sharing it...overall, I thought this was lots of fun. But, we did win our opener (10-0) so I’m in a happy mood this week.
I am genuinely surprised that OFL didn't point out the offensiveness of 38D: "Zip-a-___-Doo-Dah" DEE. While Disney et al had good intentions in creating Song of The South, it's patronizing at best and affirming segregation and slavery at worst. Disney has not re-released it since 1986, and probably never will. The song itself is pleasant and not overtly racist, but the context is pretty bad.
As OFL might say, there are plenty of ways to clue DEE without referencing a dated, racist movie that Disney is trying to commit to the memory hole. Like "Twisted Sister's Snider"
I'd be happy if OFL gave NRA,BRO and his other bete noirs the same benign neglect.
Always a little slow at math, it took me a minute to understand the theme - ergo, I liked it. FOCSLE and BONNET were treats.
@pabloinnh, I thought of you when TESSA showed up again - glad it gave me a chance to wish you a belated happy birthday. Very neat that you share it with your granddaughter.
@Marc K....There are a lot of songs - particularly American folk songs that some of us grew up with that contain wincing words that we wouldn't use today. They are antiquated. And yes, they contain some language that is cringe-worthy. Jimmy Crack Corn and Oh Susanna come to mind. I believe the ice cream song is also one that contains lyrics that make you wince.
Disney chose to put the song to rest and had the wherewithal to create the wonderful "Zootopia."
I'm sure if you look for about 3 seconds you can find a zillion things that were offensive back in the day...unfortunately, even today.
Yes @M&A, that's it. All the other multiple vowels-in-sequence words I've seen don't meet the different vowels criterion. @Poggius, you might submit that one to the International Scrabble Dictionary Committee. You could use this comment board as a verifying reference.
I enjoy timed solving, which is different from speed solving. It’s interesting to me when my solve time implies a level of difficulty different from the perceived difficulty. It’s interesting to see the average solving time curve up through the week. It’s interesting to measure myself in Rex-units and speculate about whether a straight ratio is meaningful (it isn’t, because your solving time is your reading time plus your thinking time plus your entry time). It’s not at all interesting to measure my speed on a bicycle; I’m not sure why. Generally I enjoy numbers and data, and puzzle solving time leads to rumination about stuff beyond the puzzle- it enhances the experience. So, thumbs up for times and for Rex’s reports on his. Thumbs sideways for the competitive aspect.
Oh, and thumbs down for passive-aggressive bullying.
@G(LL I. Oh I totally agree. I'm tweaking OFL a bit because he gets apoplectic about NRA but let's zip-ah-DEE-doo-dah, a song from an actually racist movie, slide.
Several problems with this one, the principal one being the "Is that all there is?" factor on the theme. But IDO like that each answer is "DOUBLED:" 1-2-4-8.
Unless Hershey bought out Mars, the clue on MOUNDS is wrong. EGESTS makes another appearance; a perfectly good word except that no real person ever uses it. And I'm with OFC: ban all RSO'ers (random sports orgs.).
I'm not a big fan of RATEDR, or RRATED, etc.: more letter addition. However, I've become resigned to their existence. Actually don't mind AWW--now there's a thing that real people DO say, especially at baby dogs, cats, or humans.
TESSA Thompson gets the DOD; there were few OPTIONS. Bogey.
A perfectly harmless puzzle today with nothing to gripe about. The words/homophones that "head" the themers and double as you go through them reflect the revealer to a T. The fill is just fine. People also say RATED R, @Spacey, but I know you have your particular peeves. For the record, I don't like RSOs either but sometimes the constructor needs them, I think.
Anyway, nice use of the Qs today. Quito is a rarity in the NYT xword, and SEQUOIAs are great-looking trees.
Not a "chocoholic", I might be a coconut-ic, Whenever I'm in the States I'll buy a MOUNDS. Never see them in Canada (but we do have Mars bars. My favourite coconut bar up here is Bounty. Just so you know.
There was no picture in my paper for 1A, so REBUS wasn't immediately obvious.
Overall, I liked the puzzle and see no need to change its day of publishing.
Simple, neat, and on the easy side of medium. Pretty basic idea and revealer, with a nice "aha" moment at the end. What's to complain about?
Left the middle North til last. AQABA/QUITO are good ones, and BITMAP fit right in. Elsewhere, SEQUOIA rounded out the Qs.
Pleasantly satisfying solve.
SPARE ICE?
If it is TOODARNHOT FOR an OVERCOAT,
INANHOUR you’ll AFFIRM, “No fun!”
And then FORACHANGE of ASSORT
FUEL up with a few COLDONES.
--- TESSA ANN MUNIS
Didn’t bother with theme concerns until after finishing. Yeah, the HEADERS are DOUBLEd. I think you’ve used up your all of your SPARE apostrophes to properly spell FO’C’S’LE.
I remember going to DOUBLEHEADERS. That’s a lot of baseball to sit through when you’re too young to drink a couple of COLDONES. The way the game drags on now it’s probably best that they do the day/night thing when a DOUBLEHEADER is needed. On the other hand, we played DOUBLEHEADERS all the time in softball; got each game done INANHOUR. It sure beat playing games twice a week; freed up a night for other activities.
I’ll go with the other of the OPTIONS and give ANN Patchett her yeah baby due.
This puz was OK even if it had a REBUS, or didn’t.
Did not like Lions and Tigers clue - what does the constructor believe a Bengal to be?
@pmdm: Mr. Chen is always critical of everything -- and seemingly devoid of all self-awareness, because his own puzzles commit all of the sins he rakes others over the coals for, AND his prose is awful. (Yes, yes, he's a published YA author -- big whoop. Published by whom?) I stand by my criticism: He can't write, he thinks he's funny but has a dull and adolescent sense of humor, he savages other constructors under a thin and unconvincing veneer of "Hey I'm really a nice guy here," and he writes endlessly and boringly about himself. (And the lack of self-awareness is cringeworthy here, because he doesn't seem to realize that his preening is a signal to everyone else that he hates himself.)
What he has done to that blog, which is supposed to be a useful collection of NYT grids and stats about them, is disgusting. And he charge for it -- if you try to access it more than a certain number of times a day, you're cut off. Really really gross. Either do it for the love of it, or don't do it. The guy who started it didn't charge -- and he didn't savage other constructors.
@rainforest About the RSOs -- If the constructors dropped them from the word lists, then they would use something else in their place. If they can't find something else, then they adjust the surrounding fill until they can fill in those blanks.
There's no good reason to keep them, especially considering that sports that splits along sex-gender lines -- men watch much more sports events than women, so this kind of fill automatically excludes a big chunk of women. Nothing else in puzzles splits along sex-gender lines -- you either know old movies / opera / art / different types of music etc. or you don't, but that has nothing to do with being male or female (or fluid).
There is already way too much sports s*** in puzzles; the last thing we need is more of it, in this weird, condensed, made-up form. I hope editors will stop accepting it, but I doubt it.
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