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Mac former Bay Area hip hop great / FRI 4-19-19 / Sportscaster inducted into Television Hall of Fame in 2013 / Tayside turndown / Opera with Gypsy song
Friday, April 19, 2019
Constructor: Caleb Madison
Relative difficulty: Medium (6:19)
Word of the Day: Mac DRE (22A: Mac ___ (former Bay Area hip-hop great)) —
Andre Louis Hicks (July 5, 1970 – November 1, 2004), known professionally as Mac Dre, was an American rapper and record producer based in Oakland, CA. He was instrumental in the emergence of Hyphy, a cultural movement in the Bay Area hip-hop scene that emerged in the early 00s. Hicks is considered one of the movement's key pioneers that fueled its popularity into mainstream, releasing songs with fast-paced rhymes and baselines that inspired a new style of dance. As the founder of the independent record label, Thizz Entertainment, Hicks recorded dozens of albums and gave aspiring rappers an outlet to release albums locally.In 2004, Hicks was killed by an unknown assailant after a performance in Kansas City, Missouri, a case that remains unsolved. (wikipedia)
• • •
ALTERED is an anagram of ALERTED, and it's directly above ALERTED, and my brain keeps wanting to make these facts meaningful, but I'm pretty sure they're just coincidences. I am frequently against cross-referencing clues, but SNOOP and DRE really do cry out for each other. I've never heard of today's DRE, but some of my much hipper musical friends are impressed by his inclusion here, so I'm going to defer to them. Seemed like the MICHAELS clue was really tough; I mean, you didn't give me "Al" or nothin' ... people who know nothing about sports are going to be super-confused by that one. Maybe just as confused as if you'd handed them "Al," but at least "Al" would've given them some of hope jarring MICHAELS loose via in-the-air name association. Enjoyed the clues on TETRIS (20A: Game where you don't want to reach the top) and ANDREA (25D: Girl's name in the U.S. that's a boy's name in Italy). Briefly doubted the thingness of COLD ROOM (12D: Food storage spot), but my friend Lena set me straight.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. pretty sure "epistaxis" is just a "medical term"—not sure where "fancy" comes in (26A: What "epistaxis" is a fancy medical term for = NOSEBLEED). "Myocardial infarction" isn't "fancy." It's technical. Respect the Greek, man
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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97 comments:
Puzzle was up early, so I may be first...
Died in the NW.
Cluing in that area was brutal today, for me. I had “gun” for 5D for far too long, along with “riot” for 6D which flat out did me in. Had ___GIN for 1D and the rest just wasn’t happening for some reason. 17A: Fuggeddaboutit. None of the answers are unknown to me or particularly arcane, after the fact. Several “d’oh!” moments when finished.
As to the rest, it was great cluing with pretty good answers. Misdirection abounded as far as my outhouse was concerned. Went through two rolls…
Seeing GEODESIC was fun; don’t remember the last time that appeared, don’t know how to check, and wouldn’t care enough to do so if I did.
CARMEN. Yeah, whatevs. I can’t abide opera – the fat lady singing is orders of magnitude worse than fingernails on chalkboards - so the clues are meaningless but the answers are simple once I get partials. I’ve read enough about them even though I’d never waste my time at one. Tremolo in a shrieking soprano is way overrated.
I was so sure of 41A being Clara that I left it for far too long.
We have a plethora of 2D here in the “greater” L.A. area.
I don’t watch TV except for the odd evening local news, for the weather, and I have no “premium” channels, so 45D-style GOT clues are no help. Must wait for crosses and ROBERT showed up fairly easily.
Couldn’t say who sings 16A, or what the lyrics are, or even what the melody is, but somehow sussed it out of the depths of memory.
Andrea Bocelli made 25A easy.
Fun to learn the technical term for a NOSEBLEED.
53A took me back. The E-Ticket rides at Dismal Land back in the day, before $149 one-day general admission. Food extra. But I digress.
Thanks, Caleb. Liked it. Solid puzzle, good cluing, little dreck. In fact, looking back at it I see no dreck whatsoever (okay, maybe CEN…maybe). Just because it kicked my gluteal region is not sufficient reason to pan the puzzle. We battled; valiantly though I vied, I lost. That happens about 2% of the time on a Friday these days.
Definitely passes the “tussle test,” as @Lewis would put it.
Saturday don’t fail me now.
In GEODESIC DOMES with CARMEN
Mark, in Mickey’s North 40.
I thought I had a decent vocabulary but obviously I will have to up my game and hatch more nefarious plans than I have so far in order to keep up with words like “MWAHAHA”. I usually just say, “Hold my beer and watch this!”
Easy. Faster than yesterday’s and Wednesday’s. My first thought for 1a was right and I just kept going. I had none of the problems that @Rex did. Solid, fun but not a Fri. Liked it.
Easy here. MARGIN next to a hestitant WEIRDO let me see MWAHAHA, and one thing led to another from there.
I wonder if the ALTERED-->ALERTED stack was coincidental; it cerainly gets a prominent role, right in the center. I liked how its not only an anagram but also defines what an anagram does.
Also liked CLAUS as a "claws" homophone next to LION and the parallel geometric solids DOME and CONE.
Looking back over the grid, I saw RIMSHOT, which I'd gotten entirely from crosses and hadn't noticed. I did a double take when I looked at the clue (expecting a basketball reference) and had to Google it. Learned something!
A pretty average Friday. I could have sworn we had MWAHAHA before. Turns out it was BWAHAHA. Anyway I erroneously thought 1A would'nt start with an M as it's been done recently. NAPKIN went in at 1D for short while and it almost worked. RIMSHOT cleared up the confusion.
That NW was where I finished. The NE is where I started. Initially I wanted GOESAPE and GOKARTS for 8A and 8D. Luckily I recognized the 16A lyrics.
MOTE before MITE slowed down getting LIONTAMER. I guess you could say it was a case of MITE makes right.
Triple 6s 7s and 8s all over the place. Fun. Had LoONTAMER before changing MoTE to MITE. Yesterday COSELL, today MICHAELS. That could cause WHIPlash. First played TETRIS on a GAME BOY. No WHIPlash there.
AMEOBAs are pretty blobby, at least compared to parameciums.
Started out with bwahaha, MARGINal fix. ANITA went with my Santa at 41A, my second favorite race track after Del Mar. puzz partner gave me GEODESIC DOME and we were off and running.
One funny little glitch, I had MOTE at 39D, came across 42A, figured out LION TAMER, transposed my letters and ended up with LOIN TAMER for a bit, kinda kinky, huh?
Easy Friday for me, I don’t often get to say that.
Minor pedantry: the Epcot ball is a geosphere, not a geodesic dome. A geodesic dome is a half-sphere.
I am not a speed solver, but this came in at half my Friday average. We had the MWAHAHA again, so the NW went down easily, as did the NE, SW and SE in that order. GEODESIC DOME and ICE CREAM CONE were gimmees and MALALA was last to fall. Not Friday fare in my estimation.
I very nearly gave up on the southeast but finally got it after many changes.
Ye!. Fell into the trap of the MOTE/MITE LOONTAMERS/LIONTAMERS cross as did our OFL, and have two agree that "Loon Tamers' could be an excellent job title for whoever keeps the meeting discussion under control.
And yep, spent 50% of my time on this puzzle working out the NW corner. Sad to say that despite my office background, AEROSOL did not come quickly as I kept trying ti put alcohOL on that across. Once I figured that out, the end came quickly.
As for chemical suffixes, is it -ene or -ane, or -IDE as it was today. Ugh. Crossword-ise.
What great corners this morning. RIM SHOT, WE’RE OPEN, REAL TIME, SEE PAST, ECLECTIC, MWAHAHA… nice job, Caleb.
@Carola – great catch on the MARGIN WEIRDO pair.
@pauslfo – me, too, for ending in the southeast. I just couldn’t see RAN LATE.
Rex – loved your “loon tamer” mistake and your “hoot rods.” I think you’re onto something with hoot rod. “Boob hope” – choosing your implants.
“Treat with an edible container” – sunflower seed. Yup. I eat the entire thing.
“Food storage spot” – you wouldn’t believe the places I hide my snacks in my room. Students are SNOOPs. So are substitute teachers. We have a true shortage of subs (plenty for our county but few who dare to sub at the high school because the kids have such a bad rep). Of the four regular subs we have, two are marginal weirdos. One is the woman I’ve written about here who is a compulsive talker, the one who has cornered me at least three times with three different stories about three different places, and they all end in … so anyway, I’m not welcome back there… The other one is a SNOOP. My next-door neighbor English teacher learned from her kids that the sub had rifled through her drawers, so she ALERTED the other teachers. Some now tape their drawers shut when they know she’ll be the sub. Not me. I just hide my candy and nuts and stuff behind books on the bookcase.
COHORTS feels a little more involved than the “companions” in the clue. A companion is someone you talk to over your egg-cups, someone you go to museums with or check out the latest film with. A COHORT is someone you get arrested with.
I have to disagree with Rex on the “fancy” deal. Using the technical Latin or Greek term as a layman out in the wild feels fancy. You tell me your issue and use the official Latin or Greek term, and I’ma think you’re going all fancy on me or at least trying to soften/augment the description. Once, I listened carefully when our pediatrician recorded his notes in a little transcription thingy. My son had “dried rhino matter” in his nose. Hearing that there was something associated with rhinos in my son’s nose was startling. Actually, that the doctor found anything in there at all was even more startling. A rhinotillexomaniac, my son kept both vaults smooth and pristine. Both my kids did. The only respite I got was the week they had enterobius vermicularis.
After an unfortunate binge on sugar-free hard candies and an interminable session interviewing prospective TAs in a tiny, tomb-silent conference room, I looked up the technical term for that thing your stomach does when it just has these internal squeaks, like there is some wise-ass MITE in there slow-releasing the air from a little wise-ass mite balloon. Now high-pitched and curvy, now low-pitched and sinister. We’ve all been there. It’s such a helpless feeling ‘cause no amount of squirming or coughing will cover the little concert. I never found the technical term, so I’ll propose flatulencus in situ.
Wrote in MWAHAHA and was off to the races. Or so I thought. Turned out to be a bit slow in the end. Also, I really didn't trust ALT. Isn't elevation the normal term for that? Wikipedia seems to think so.
NAPKIN v MARGIN and I was doomed for several minutes of what else could it be?
I love you, Michael. You make my day. Sending you a check. Contribute, folks, to this amazing blog.
The Loontrainerš
Seemed hard when I began. Couldn’t get any kind of toehold at first, but then I got going in the southeast corner, and, as usual, the answers started to come. It seems like I got on to the constructor’s wavelength after a while. When that happens I can often get through a bunch of clues that had previously seemed impenetrable.
I enjoyed the puzzle, but have to admit that it's probably not the usual Friday puzzle in terms of difficulty. I’ll take it, though.
Rex, I enjoyed reading your review more than I do usually (which is a pretty high bar). It was informative and upbeat, and it concentrated on the positives rather than the negatives. Very refreshing. Thank you.
@LMS: I just want to tell you how much I enjoy your posts. You have a delightful writing style. I think I most enjoy your anecdotes about your school and your locality. May you keep ‘em coming.
Easy- solved it in somewhere between Tuesday/Wednesday time.
Enjoyable puzzle with nice clueing overall and only a little junk fill.
Interesting: AEROSOL
Educational: mac DRE, epistaxis/NOSEBLEED
Feel Good: ONELOVE
This fell right in my sweet spot, which doesn't happen often on Friday, and the grid is impressively free of junk. Try making a 68-worder sometime so clean. I loved seeing the word ECLECTIC -- it just rolls off the tongue so beautifully -- and got a kick out of the the clue for SETS [Live musicians play them]. I also smiled at the anagrams ALTERED and ALERTED, one over the other.
GEODESIC DOMES brought Buckminster Fuller to mind; he's the man who gave them their name. He did so while teaching at Black Mountain College, near here in Asheville, and a most interesting place. Well known teachers and students included the De Koonings, Robert Rauschenberg, Josef and Anni Albers, and John Cage. If you've never heard of it (it no longer exists), reading about it will take you through a fascinating rabbit hole.
Speaking of geodesic domes, here's a factoid: A sphere encloses the largest volume for the least surface area.
Thank you, Caleb, for the exercise and memories!
Fun puzzle! Got stuck in the NW for a while and then escaped.
@LMS: I teach at a suburban high school and we also have a shortage of subs. In fact we may have the same four subs that you do as I also have to hide my candy and we have weirdos who are close talkers. Go figure!
@LMS, I deal with a lot of BOOB despair in my line of work, which mostly involves instilling HOPE with practical suggesting so they can make more.
As for SNOOPs with light fingers, I once worked in a genetic engineering lab where one of the lab assistants would constantly filth stuff from our drawers. She hoarded micropipettes. We never did figure out why.
Using one of the collective nouns for loon, the proper phrase would be "taming an asylum of loons."
Could this catch on, like Bart Simpson's "smell you later"?
Fun puz.
Simon, my Eclectus parrot (it's a real bird), is very happy to be (sorta) in the puzzle. And I am happy with this puzzle and also that it is Friday.
Loren, look up BORBORYGMI. It' can be a sign of bowel obstruction. So the next time your stomach really makes a loud rumble you can throw that out there. " Oh my God, I think I have BORBORYGMI!"
Got it done with no errors, but the NW had me working in slow motion. Enjoyed BLOB and BLIP for some reason. If it gets harder tomorrow, I’m in for it.
Whether igloo, hut, or lean-to
Or a geodesic dome
There's no structure I have been to
Which I'd rather call my home.
Nice puzzle, but over too soon and not one that will stick with me.
Mini-theme of answers with three of a letter:
mwAhAhA
mAlAlA
eCleCtiC
icEcrEamconE
gEodEsicdomE
cOldrOOm
TaTTLER
nosEblEEd
wErEopEn
@DeeJay - Nelson Muntz is the originator of "smell ya later".
Easy week continues! This was my third day this week setting a personal best time, along with Monday and Wednesday, and the other two days I posted pretty great times as well. I initially waffled between MWAHAHA and bWAHAHA, but MARGIN resolved that quickly, and then I just flew through. Of course, my personal best is still slower than Rex’s medium, but I’m getting closer!
My one nitpick turns out to be iffier than I thought. I was pretty sure that Spaceship Earth was a GEODESIC sphere, not a DOME. On doing a bit of reading after finishing, however, I find that even though the first line of the Wikipedia article on geodesic domes states, “A geodesic dome is a hemispherical thin-shell structure (lattice-shell) based on a geodesic polyhedron,” (emphasis mine) it then goes on to list Spaceship Earth as one of the most famous geodesic domes in the world. But if you click through to the article on Spaceship Earth, the first line tells us, “Spaceship Earth is a geodesic sphere that serves as the symbolic structure of Epcot.” I guess they just can’t make up their minds if it’s a sphere or a dome or both.
Thank you! That was driving me crazy.
Came in 7 minutes under my average for Fridays, weird mix of easy and out there! I feel like I’ve spent a lot of time in and around the restaurant / bar industry, and have NEVER heard the Walk-In called a ‘Cold Room.’
Wow, nice and crunchy! Started out very slowly in the NW, then picked up lots of speed and was zipping along till I slowed down again in the SE. There was something very pleasant about that. The puzzle has lots I didn’t know (sports announcers and GOT, among others) — and some very nifty misdirects — but all came reasonably easily from crosses. I don’t usually nitpick, but I think @Unknown is right about a geodesic dome being a half sphere — Bucky Fuller was a Big Thing when I was in college.
Still, I really enjoyed this.
Got hung up on all of the above mistakes, particularly Rex’s... but still don’t understand 7 across Rimshot?
Great fun! I HAd A COW in the NE where I was nearly OVERCOME by COLD ROOM. I mean you have your pantries and your cupboards and your refrigerators and your larders and your meat lockers, but a COLD ROOM? I like to sleep in a very COLD ROOM, but I wouldn't store my food there. Maybe if I lived in an igloo?
But no other nits, though I felt I would need HELP with HELP (46A). When I'm at a bar looking at the right side of the menu, I want either food or drink. Since I try to avoid computer menus wherever they lurk because the instructions always bewilder me, I was completely misled by the clue.
And it was hard to SEE PAST "Coming soon To A THEATER NEAR YOU" (or something very much like it, but shorter) for 58A which turned out to be TRAILER. NOSEBLEED as clued was a delight and I also loved ECLECTIC. A really enjoyable puzzle from top to bottom.
Mrs. 'mericans and dispatched this one quickly (for a Friday), though still in more than 5 Rexes. We agree with him that the fill is clean (AEROSOL gets the GRIT out). Nice to SEE the word MARGIN written in the MARGIN.
Loved @Rex's write-up. His spoonerisms (and @chjefwen's LoiN TAMER) definitely merit a RIMSHOT or two.
Don't know where I've heard it (working long ago for the A&P?), but COLD ROOM was familiar to me. My nit is more with CEN than with IDE.
EGG CUPs ... LOREdy! When we first moved to Europe, we encountered EGG CUPs everywhere. They seemed such a superfluous item, especially if one prefers hard-boiled over soft-boiled EGGs. On the other hand, I lived first in the Netherlands, which at the time (early 1980s) had a terrible and very limited cuisine. Yet people would eat everything -- including bananas -- with a fork or spoon and knife. Well, perhaps not ICECREAM CONEs. I was glad to move away. Since then, the food, coffee and BEERS have much improved.
It's Mueller time! MWAHAHA MALALA !
Caleb Madison as the constructor usually means I'm in for some fun and today did not disappoint. How could I not love a puzzle that starts with Mwahaha!?
Lots of interesting words and good memories to go with my coffee.
Then Rex outdoes himself with loon tamer. Fantastic. I can't wait to work that into a conversation.
Sugar free candies do the same thing to me, Loren. But in my case that is only the start of the "fun". TMI, I know. Sorry.
Finished this in less time than yesterday’s. No complaints. I did put in NIGHTMARE before NOSEBLEED. I had a whopping epistaxis during my SATs. So bad in fact I had to take them over because the documents were covered in blood. Nerves or maybe the high altitude of the ivory tower. Or possibly anemia. I wanted Santa CLARA today, which made me HOOT out loud when I remembered the aunt from Bewitched. Marion Lorne MacDougal. My idea of a nice jacket is SERGE. Loved the clue for ALTERED. Altered States, the movie, still packs a punch.
for anyone still unclear about a RIMSHOT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOmtFLsbvvk
@rex and @LMS ... I think you’ve a Sunday puzzle forming there between hoot rods, loon tamer, and boob hope ... I’m sure there are more of those ... if not a Sunday at least a solid midweek puzzle theme. Please make that puzzle together.
MALALA crossing AMO = Naticko. Started with a U, (MuLALA looks good, and uMO looks no weirder than AMO) then went to an E (MeLALA isn't bad, but eMO is an actual name of an actual crosswordese comedian), then ran the alphabet and the puzzle immediately liked the A. Surprised Rex didn't mention it...or having gone this late in the comments and not have it mentioned...so I'm mentioning it.
I play lots of word games on my phone...the kind where you get 7 letters and you have to come up with as many words as possible. Some games are pretty exhaustive and include all kinds of words I've never heard of. But for all of those puzzles, ADE is never accepted as a word. ADE is a standard issue crosswordese that I've seen for years in puzzles...but it's so weird that those word puzzle apps don't accept it.
I wanted nApkIN for a doodle site. Also wanted WhackO...but then instead of IDE I wanted enE or InE. Also MoTE. and HASAfit.
Lots of reworking today. I still like napkin for a doodle site.
Re: ALTERED/ALERTED anagram, right next door HOTRODS/COHORTS is just one letter off from an anagram. Gotta think that's what the constructor was going for...
Easiest Friday in a long time for me--more like a Wednesday experience. As a doc, didn't hesitate a second before filling in NOSEBLEED. Only place that slowed me down was NE, where I started with HAVEAfit.
Loved @RP's LoONTAMER. Reminded me of a couple of current TV commercials that frequently run during evening network news which I actually look forward to seeing again: one for an insurance company with an apparently real emu (play on a short form of the firm's name) teamed with a human to spread word about the company's products, and the other with a CGI turkey doing yardwork for a product to help smokers quit.
Was hoping I'd get to be the first to share the wonderful medical term "borborygmi" in response to @Loren's query, but JJ beat me to it.
Man, Rex was funny today!
anyone outside of the bay area ever heard of Mac Dre before?
'oe 2 ez 4 Jud-in-"Oklahoma!" Doris (or Morris).
This practically filled itself in. My one goof was IOTA for MITE, since I knew SETH Green.
I'm kind of tired of MWAHAHA showing up. It was cute the first time, but that was long long ago, in a distant puzzle of yore...
Wow.
You don’t need to like opera.
You also don’t need to be so sanctimonious and rude in your critique of it.
The language that you have used is both very misogynistic and deploys personal attacks against the singers who devote their lives to training to be singers.
Do you think you can rearticulate your aesthetic critique without belittling an entire cohort of women? (Note that you are willing to listen to Andrea Bocelli, but not “the fat lady”)
Hey All !
Put in bWAHAHA and was so SURE OF I never looked back. Even though scratching the head when bARGAIN ended up being a doodle site. Maybe a doodle is a toy on clearance? That works...
Fell into a HOST of the misdirects I'm sure were meant to trip up a solver, THou-THEE, ioTa-bITE-MITE, pReview-TRAILER, teaCUP-EGGCUP, AltO-ARCO. (And wanted Anita for CLAUS but didn't write it in.) Yikes.
But, overall the puz was a HOOT. Got RHOS, close enough for me, to go with YesterPuz's ROOMIE. Snuck an F in. Some fun clues, BEERS is one.
Ok, gotta SKAT.
BLOB EMOTES
RooMonster
DarrinV
This was a good puzzle except for MWAHAHA (terrible, just terrible).
When I started reading this blog, Caleb Madison was 15 years old, made great puzzles, and everyone oohed and aahed about how cute he was. He's come along nicely, this one was a real gem. Using my standard method -- going through the Across clues until I'm confident enough to write something in, then working the crossesfrom there -- I got six 7s in a rao, all with clues that could mean almost anything. Finally I decided that AEROSOL was more likely than bullets, but held off until I saw that it would cross nApkIN in the right place --and I was off! But not off and running, it turned out, I didn't think of NOSEBLEED, certainly didn't think of MWAHAHA until much later, and couldn't remember TETRIS, which I used to play incessantly, for the life of me. So back to going through the acrosses. Got ARCO, but it didn't help. I had no real ideal what Epcot's Spaceship Earth was, but since it was architectural, I figured a GEODESIC DOME would make sense, and then the SW filled in easily.
So it wasn't all THAT hard, but very satisfying to solve, and with so many beautiful answers!
@Lewis = the Institute of Contemporary Art here had a show about Black Mountain College a few years ago. What a fascinating place! It didn't last long, but had a tremendous impact. BTW, I'm looking forward to your puzzle in my Boston Globe tomorrow!
@runs -- Hey, Carmen's a mezzo, maybe you'd like it -- here's one of the best performances ever of the Habanera. Callas does hit a few high notes, though.
@loren I agree with you on the “fancy medical term” but I think to properly convey the contempt the clue should have been “fancy-ass medical term.”
I was surprised to find that Delaware flies at a lower average altitude them Florida. Isn’t Florida mostly below sea level except for the crust around the edges that keeps the ocean away? I guess the height of the edges raises the mean.
All you smarty pants that got 1A. I had HAHA but forgot about the MWA.
I wish I could spell WEIRDO. That damn "I before E except after C" painted in my head by a well meaning English teacher, gets me every time. Anyway, I left that NW and continued on my merry way.
I don't think I've met a Caleb puzzle that I dislike. He's fun.
I got LION TAMER without problems but I sure prefer @chefwen's LOIN Tamer. Some of those loincloth's - particularly those that need to cover the genitals and a fat butt, need taming. Watch "Naked and Afraid" and you'll get a tutorial...
Nothing gave me much angst. Any king in GoT I will GeT. MICHAELS came via crosses. Hey, we have ANDREA MICHAELS aka ACME here.
I like the word ECLECTIC but I won't use it. It seems like everybody in San Francisco used that word to either describe a restaurant, a philosopher, a gay bar or a musician. It reminds me of sourdough bread. You overuse it, it becomes stale.
I don't like SNOOping because I'm always scared of what I might find. Working at a temp job in NYC, my co-worker loved to SNOOP in the boss's drawer. He usually locked it. She would check it every night after he left. One time, he forgot to lock it and co-worker pulls out fotos he took of his penis on the photocopier machine. I remember how hard we laughed. It gives the name "Johnson" a bad rap.
Finished all but the NW. Went back upstairs and everything sorta fell into place. Another Friday sans Googs so that pleased me. Too bad it was over so soon. I'll take seconds, thanks.
Thought I was on my way to a person best Friday, but got snagged up in the SE. Don't watch Game of Thrones and, for whatever reason, MALALA's name just didn't want to spring to mind, though I definitely know it. And wasn't a big fan of BLOB for the amoeba clue. Took me a while to convince myself the answer was correct before proceeding (and then I also thought perhaps gLOB was a reasonable alternative, if BLOB was an acceptable answer.) That whole section cost me an extra three or four minutes.
Glad to see SKAT in the puzzle. Bit esoteric for most, but I learned skat about twenty years ago with a couple of card-game-loving friends in Budapest. We were often short a fourth for the usual trick-taking (or avoiding) games like euchre, hearts, pinochle, pitch, etc. (we didn't really do bridge), and weren't really too happy with the three-player versions of these games. One day, at a bar, we went through a book of card games and found that the German game skat was recommended (and designed) for three, and offered a reasonably complex game of bidding and trick-taking. It's a bit of a convoluted game to learn from a book, but we did end up learning it correctly, though the first several dozen games ended up with all of us having scores deep in the negative, until we learned how to evaluate hands and make appropriate bids. It's still my favorite three-hander, and worth looking into if you're into cards.
Ends a long streak of DNF on Fridays and Saturdays! As usual, I was Naticked, this time at MALALA and AMO, but as not so usual, I guessed correctly. (not totally a guess, don't know much Latin, but "Odi" seems to suggest hate, so Amo made sense)
Enjoyable puzzle, and no complaints at all from me! I did expect some objections to lion tamers using the whip....
1. Superb fillins. Some faves: ECLECTIC. EGGCUP. ICECREAMCONE.
2. A few entertainin clues. This is crucial, when there's no puztheme (other than ALTERED ALERTED). Coulda even had more, maybe. Some faves: {Delaware has the lowest mean one in the U.S.:Abbr.} = ALT; M&A started out with GOV, there. {Person who's whip-smart?} = LIONTAMER. {Round parts?} = BEERS.
3. 8 weejects. staff pick: CEN. No big reason, other than for its inherent desperation. Maybe also cuz it crosses SCENTED; nice echo effect.
4. If U connect all the U's, you get a cute runty little stick.
Is COLDROOM ok? Had not heard of that. Official M&A Help Desk Dictionary ain't heard of it. I'm ok with it, as it helps enable a COW.
Thanx for the feisty fun, Mr. Madison.
Masked & AnonymoUUs
it's Mueller time (yo, @mericans):
**gruntz**
I love a Good Friday puzzle and this one was, but I was tripped up by MWAHAHA and RIMSHOT. I knew MARGIN and WEIRDO were correct but an MW start seemed crazy and I’ve never heard RIMSHOT refer to a joke. I needed the check function to see what 4 letters needed correction. At that point I got it, but MWAHAHA is still insane.
@Gill I - great catch on ANDREA MICHAELS!
@Quasimojo - I never had you pegged as a Bewitched watcher.
Finished it 100%, but can't say I liked the puzzle. "MWAHAHA" sounds like something a retarded person would say. I'd be interested in hearing from scientists about whether an amoeba could be a "BLOB." And why are "ARMIES" defined as large numbers?
CONSORTS, SUREST and TARE before I got SETH, corrected CONSORTS to COHORTS, SUREST to SURE OF and TARE to FARE, and bam. A nice puzzle, not too easy, not too hard - it felt just right to me. I still have no idea why you'd tell a cellist to ARCO - having looked it up, it's as obscure for those among us who have never played a string instrument as Al MICHAELS might be to someone who's never watched sports. My guess is that the former (no string instruments) far outweigh the latter (in number, not in poundage); funny that @Rex picked on the MICHAELS clue as obscure. Nothing could have made ARCO less obscure with the same meaning.
ARCO is the most common bowing technique and simply means to play with the standard bowing technique. The arco technique can be used on a wide variety of stringed instruments such as the violin, viola, CELLO or double bass.
An ECLECTIC yet easy puzzle this fine Friday. I took the taming LOONs route at first and I had the devil of a time seeing ETI_____T down at 53A because the brain was stuck on ETa or ETD so I checked and rechecked REAL TIME but that had to be right.
You can perhaps guess how my co-worker, Bruce, wanted 45D clued.
There were things I didn't have any hope of knowing (MICHAELS, SETH, DRE). But the crosses were all fair. DRE filled in so completely that I never had to worry my pretty little head over what it could be, whew.
Knowing MALALA helped the SE fill in ever so easily as RAN LATE and TRAILER splatzed in off of that cross with no other help required, which felt good.
@LMS, I went through a phase where I ate the whole sunflower seed but quit when my overactive imagination had me worried that the shells would perforate something in my digestive system. Now I only eat pre-shelled sunflower seeds - I'm not interested enough to take the trouble of shelling them.
All in all, a fine Friday puzzle in my opinion. Thanks Caleb.
@Ellen S 10:41 AM -- Your supposition about Florida is funny. Sure, there are some dunes along the coats, but they are not what raises the average elevation of the state. Roughly speaking, the main part, running on a NW to SE axis down to Lake Okeechobee, if you were to do a cross-section of it, would be shaped like an inverted, but very shallow, V.
From Gainesville northward, the topography rises gradually as you move northward.
I can't answer the "why" part, but here's one of the dictionary definitions of army:
a large number of people or things, typically formed or organized for a particular purpose.
"an army of photographers"
synonyms: crowd, swarm, multitude, horde, host, mob, gang, throng, stream, mass, body, band, troop, legion, flock, herd, pack, drove, sea, array; literary myriad
"an army of tourists"
Good Friday.
@brookboy—
Thanks! My feelings exactly!!! Except I guess I’ll have to look up rimshot. And, thanks again, @LMS
I attended Southern Illinois University in the early 70s and Buckminster Fuller was in residence there associated with the design school. He gave a talk one evening in a small hall on campus and about 500 people showed up packing the place walk to wall.He didn't discuss design theory, but instead spoke about his personal development. At about 20 years old he began doubting everything he had been taught or assumed to be true,and set about trying to re-train his brain and start over from scratch verifying everything for himself. He gave numerous examples of how he went about this. He spoke with no notes for about 2 hours. You could hear a pin drop in the room.To be in the presence of someone whose intelligence is so far above anyone else you have ever met us an overwhelming experience. 50 years later,I still think about it.
@Ellen, the Florida panhandle kind of tilts up toward Alabama, and then there's Lake County with Sugarloaf Mountain. So all that beats out Delaware which just has Mt. Cuba, which is very small, and most of Delaware is not too far from the ocean.
@Hungry-- running Delaware next week?
@Gill, the rest of the rule goes "or when sounding like 'ay' as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh'." And WEIRD used to be pronounced more like that. I think.
MALALA took me too long so the SE was hard for me, making the whole puzzle a normal-ish time. Hand up for BWA and IOTA.
I never really liked opera until I joined the chorus of an accomplished regional opera company. It's a shame that the style of singing turns so many people off; it prevents them from appreciating the music itself, which is often some of the best ever written in the history of humankind. There is no other art form that brings together so many disciplines -- music, acting, stagecraft and pure stamina -- the way opera does. Even you, @RwS, might have an appreciation for that if you gave it a chance.
Surely I'm not the only one who plunked in GOOGLE for "Site for a doodle"?????
Okanaganer
@tjs -- Thank you for sharing that -- what a cool experience to have.
@jberg -- I hope you like it!
Hate stuff like Mwahaha, but fortunately have seen it before in NYT
A rimshot occurs when a snare drummer holds one stick on the raised rim and hits it sharply with the other stick. You often hear on on a talk show with a band and the host (or guest) makes a corny joke. It a sort of high sharp badaboom sound.
Yes @Okanaganer, you're the only one.
Har!
And regretting I didn't end my signoff last time with
SNOOP BLOB.
RooMonster
Borborygmi
@Banana 10:12
You are so right. I don't have to like opera.
Were I mysogynistic I'd have named a singer and demanded she get back in the kitchen and bedroom.
I din't listen to Bocelli either; not my style of music. I know who he is.
Finally, consider the origin of phrase "it ain't over til the fat lady sings."
You might want to work on your reading comprehension.
@Wood 3:19
Listening to the music is how I formed my opinion of it.
@Runs with Scissors 4:40...If you'll have me, I'm getting in the front seat with you.
I dislike opera to the point of wanting to run out in the freeway and scream. With me, it's the soprano voice. I don't know why. My Dad was a huge opera fan and played it (loudly) ALL the time. I was supposed to enjoy this sublime artistic endeavor. I didn't. My first opera was La Boheme. I was 16 or so. All I could think of during the 8 hours it took Mimi to die was....I'll kill her myself. I can abide a Kiri once in a while but the high pitch, no matter how pure, drives my brain to explode. I do like the tenor voice, though, and I love a good symphony if it's a Mahler. I can also listen to Jim Croce all day long.
@Banana. When you spell your drink the correct way, I'll be the fat lady who sings....just for you!
If I used Rex’s method of reacting to one-across as an indicator of how much I’m going to like a puzzle, I’d have hated this otherwise enjoyable creation. Apparently, I don’t do enough crosswords because I don’t ever recall seeing MWAHAHA before. It just looked so wrong when I confidently plugged in MARGIN and WEIRDO. So, the NW was my bugaboo and the rest of the puzzle provided a good, but rather speedy, tussle.
I wonder if James, the current Jeopardy whiz, is a crossword lover? I’m fascinated by the responses to him on Facebook’s Jeopardy! site. People either love him or . . . the other end of the spectrum. Some feel the game is suddenly fixed, as he can’t be that knowledgeable. Kind of like my initial reaction to Rex’s posted times here. I’ve come to accept that all competitive activities have practitioners who excel on absurd levels.
@Gill I. - I love many classical compositions, like some opera, but find it next to impossible to sit through as much as one Jim Croce song. Isn’t it neat that we can make our own musical choices? Everly Brothers? Oh, yes. America? Dear God, no. Marvin and Tammi? Sublime. Pet Sounds? I just don’t get it. Etc., etc. . . .
@Chip Hilton - I saw a Jeopardy breakdown on ESPN, so the man is quite a story. Given his vocation and his affect he strikes me as a bit of a savant with strong math skills and lots of applied game theory to go with his breadth of trivia knowledge. I’m always amused by the “I couldn’t do that so it’s impossible” crowd. A Chess grandmaster played 48 games simultaneously, blindfolded, while riding an exercise bike. What’s so surprising about someone like this guy coming along. The question is who is going to stop him?
Hey commentariat lovers, someone too modest to share the link here has a Saturday puzzle coming to the Universal Features puzzle. Lots of local papers carry it, but here’s the link
https://www.uclick.com/client/spi/fcx/
Be forewarned, you’ll need Flash installed to do the puzzle online.
Tremolo is an ornament, I believe you mean vibrato which is a vocal technique.
Me as well! I kept trying to make geosphere work and went down a rebus rabbit hole from which I thought I would not escape!
@kitshef, Endora was my idol growing up. :)
@Chip Hilton....I KNOW. Neat huh? Oh,I Love me some Marvin Gaye. and then you gotta add the Four Tops: Baby, I need your lovin...sugar pie, honey bunch.....
Vive la difference....!
Letterman did a series of interviews on Netflix a couple of years ago. One of them was with MALALA. It’s worth a look, delightful and charming.
@Running with Scissors and @GILL: Opera would be fine with me if...
No female voice was permitted to be higher than a Mezzo. (Coloraturas, the absolute worst, make my eyebrows hurt and my teeth ache.)
Recitative was banished from the stage completely...
Vibrato was made illegal...
No tragic heroine could take longer than 15 seconds to die (hi, @GILL). And while they're dying, THEY ARE ABSOLUTELY NOT TO SING! NOT A SINGLE NOTE!
You might end up with something like The Three Tenors. Them I like.
@CDilly52 6:11 PM
You may be right.
@GILL I 5:19 PM
Hop in!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_ain't_over_till_the_fat_lady_sings?wprov=sfti1
Perhaps it is time to re-evaluate idioms that were coined in the ‘70s
@Runs with Scissors 4:40...If you'll have me, I'm getting in the front seat with you.
@GILL I 5:19 PM Hop in!
Aww, how nice that you two have found each other. Oh -- Your vehicle has been programmed to play all Maria Callas, all the time. Have a fun trip! And don't forget to pick up @Nancy on your way out of here!
@Joe Dipinto 11:31 PM
Thanks, Joe. I'll put the Callas bust in the trunk, wrapped in sarcasm and dripping with irony. Perhaps we should slather it with an aria, or maybe a libretto or two. You are, of course, welcome to join us.
Hi all. Having just started subscribing to the online xword since delivered papers are routinely stolen from my no-doorman lobby, I'm definitely rusty. Hoping the old brain refires. I agreed with many posters about MOTE and question COHORTS, not usually a definition for companions, etc. The one that flummoxed me was RIMSHOT. Even when I knew my letters were right. Had to look it up to find it was the drum/cymbal ba-da-bing thing after a bad joke. It seems most solvers knew that!
ALT ACT
MICHAEL’S a WEIRDO, that we’re SUREOF;
he MITE need HELP we’ll avow.
He’s OVERCOME with just ONELOVE;
so he EMOTES and HASACOW.
--- MALALA MWAHAHA
From the spacecraft help desk to @Gill I:
"I before E except after C, and when sounding like A--as in 'neighbor' or 'weigh'--but there's always the WEIRD exception."
This played easy for me--Friday-easy anyway. I filled in the SW as if I were copying from an already-filled grid. The SE was a little harder: I forgot the surname of the remarkable MALALA for a moment, but the peace prize date zeroed her in. For no reason other than her fantastic courage, she deserves the DOD sash. Also had assumed (yeah, I know) that "Went over" would start with RE-something--in fact, I even wrote in the E, which caused the sole inkblot in my grid. Couldn't SEEPAST that RE-thing for a while.
Never noticed the ALTERED/ALERTED thing till getting here; cute. Wonderfully clean puzzle, an ICECREAMCONE (hold the LIMEADE, please). Smoothness points replace triumph points this time: birdie.
From the spacecraft help desk to @Gill I:
I before E except after C
And when sounding like A, as in "neighbor" and "weigh"--
But there's always the WEIRD exception!
Helped by a medical background that taught me about NOSEBLEED, I zipped through this one before the ICECREAMCONE had a chance to melt. In particular, the SW went down as though I were copying over an already-filled grid.
The SE, not so much. Assuming (!) that "Went over" would start with RE- cost me a few moments. Even wrote in the E, so suffered a single square writeover. (The R of COHORTS--just fine by me--was in place). Tussled with the meter reading for a few; just couldn't SEEPAST that E. Not a GOT follower (stop gasping, people, there ARE a few of us!), I didn't know the king. The clue for MALALA contained her surname, which I forgot, but a reread confirmed her identity via the prize date. A thoroughly remarkable young woman, she richly deserves the DOD title on the strength of her deeds alone. So my solve RANLATE, and the meter reading was just (duh!) FARE. Still, overall, an easy Friday.
Only one NAE today; thank goodness. This one is as clean as Mr. Clean's head. Smoothness points replace triumph points today: birdie.
Not sure if I'm double-posting; something WEIRD happened with the first one so I'm just making SUREOF it.
According to the "International Brotherhood of Villains Handbook" the proper expression is BLE-HA-HA. Just sayin'.
Pretty clean grid for a Friday, late week I get more deliberate so as not to create an inkfest. The Bob Marley tune was first in.
Al MICHAELS deserves an award for longevity if nothing else. He’s most famous for the pre-scripted “Do you believe in miracles!?!” when the U.S. won hockey gold. Otherwise I don’t particularly like his stressing long vowel sounds as he announces. Irritating. I’d rather have a coupla BEERS with yeah baby Jillian MICHAELS.
This puz RHOS to best of the week.
I stared at a blank grid for about a minute, then saw THEE, TETRIS, SCANT, ANAIS and I was off on this surprisingly easy, yet enjoyable, puzzle. In some areas, it was like the constructor was guiding me. I held up at Santa ----- until I got some of the answers further South, then of course CLAUS. Didn't know the GoT king (never watched it), but it just fell to the crosses. So many of the longer answers seemed obvious after a few letters. WEIRD experience.
Tons of great clues, no silly dreck, very nice grid. I do wonder though about COHORT. Does it ever require an S to denote the plural? Nevertheless, this puzzle was joy to fill in.
Not yet done, but wanted to say "hi" since I'm back from 2 weeks in Italy! My first answer was ICECREAMCONE - and I've eaten gelato every day since I've been gone, which must have inspired my answer.
My next answer was "SNOOP," as it's one of my better traits. I actually once, when asked in a job interview about my best skills, answered that I am a snoop. And yes, I got the job.
Good to be home - see all you Syndiecats later.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for more ice cream
One other bit of data. I used to teach in the evening (adult) program at a local university, and we had groups of students go through their major together for a year and a half - the groups were called COHORTS, and they became companions and friends for life! So yes - they were companions and we had plurals.
Lady Di
Welcome back, @Lady Di. Italy may be my next trip.
Re your story about COHORTS, though: yes, those groups were/are called COHORTS (familiar with that terminology myself) but each group was *a* COHORT, and the companionship existed among members of their cohort. Am I picking a nit?
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