Nicolas standout player in soccer's Premier League / SUN 11-29-20 / Brand of cologne with literary name / Cloth used in theater backdrops / Compulsive thieves informally / Dancer with glowsticks often / Supporting musician in jazz band
Constructor: Eric Berlin
Relative difficulty: Easy (9:20)
THEME: "Six-Pack" — wacky phrases where first and second parts of the phrase have 6-letter overlap; in the grid, the overlap is represented literally, with the words entered into the grid as if they were actually overlapping. Thus:
Theme answers:
EPHEMERAL EMERALDS => EPHEMERALDS (23A: Very short-lived gemstones?)
AIREDALE RED ALERT => AIREDALERT (3D: Emergency situation caused by a terrier?)
GILGAMESH GAME SHOW => GILGAMESHOW (34A: TV quiz program about an epic poem?)
SUPERMAN PERMANENT => SUPERMANENT (11D: Salon job named after a comic book hero?)
FIRST-RATE STRATEGY => FIRSTRATEGY (93A: Magnificent plan of action?)
HAMMERING MERINGUE => HAMMERINGUE (63D: Pounding on a pie topping?)
Pépé began his senior club career with Poitiers in the Championnat de France Amateur 2. He signed for Angers in 2013, aged 18, and spent a season on loan at Orléans in 2015. He signed for Lille in 2017, and was named to the UNFP Ligue 1 Team of the Year in the 2018–19 season. That summer, Pépé joined Arsenal for a club-record fee of £72 million, and won the FA Cup in his debut season.
Pépé, who was born in France to parents of Ivorian descent, made his debut for the Ivory Coast on 15 November 2016 in a friendly against France. (wikipedia)
• • •
80D: Mustachioed Springfield resident
I see what the puzzle is doing, but I don't quite know why it is doing it, considering there's no real humor or wackiness payoff. There's just a kind of grid gibberish. "Ephemeral emeralds" is kinda fun to say, but EPHEMERALDS ... actually, you know what, that's almost fun to say. That one may be the best of the lot. But take SUPERMANENT. There's just no way to make that funny as one word. I get that the way that the answers are entered in the grid is merely a visual representation of the full phrase, but even then ... is FIRST-RATE STRATEGY fun ... on any level? This is an architectural exercise. On that level, I guess it's a success. But as a bit of entertainment, it's something of a thud. You do have to do some fancy thinking to get everything to work out, but ultimately it's pretty easy. In fact, probably much easier than if the theme phrases had appeared in the grid completely. This way, every time you get *one* of those six letters in the overlap, you're actually getting *two* letters of the entire phrase. So, yeah, the theme felt very easy to untangle once you tumbled to the core concept. Beyond that, you've got a solid if fairly old-fashioned grid. When's the last time anyone said PEP PILL? Sounds like some kind of '50s/''60s euphemism for speed. When's the last time someone was STINKO? (aside from in the '40s/'50s movies I watch all the time)? Still, beyond the always-awful INAPILE and the plural suffix -ENES, nothing really grates today. I really liked SIDEMAN on the "side" of the grid with its plus one, PLUS ONE. Quite a pair, those two. Mostly, though, this was a thrill-less task.
I didn't even have interesting struggles or mistakes today. No idea who PÉPÉ was. Seems very very hard as proper nouns go, but in an easy puzzle, why not? Why not teach me about a PÉPÉ who is not LePew? Can't hurt. I actually knew TYLER, The Creator, so that somewhat toughish (depending on your musical knowledge / tastes) clue didn't faze me. Had my usual RHINE v RHONE confusion (24D: River near Rotterdam). Thought the clue on METRONOME was clever (76A: Beat box?). Sorry, really wish there were interesting things to talk about today, but if they're here, I can't see them.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. Russ. Hey, Russ. Yeah, you. Your wife Jennifer says "Happy Anniversary!" There's no one she'd rather crossword with than you. Aren't you lucky? The answer is 'yes.' Happy anniversary, you two.
According to Wikipedia, Gilgamesh is considered the “Tyler, the Creator of the late 2nd millennium BCE”. Not surprised that I am unfamiliar with both of them.
ARGGH! Sooo close! I actually had fun figuring this out. Allow me to elaborate.
1. Find the little play on overlapping words to make some sort of punny portmanteau. ✔ 2. Realize that they can be split 2 different ways. ✔ 3. Suss out how the title (Six-Pack) figures into all this… crickets. 😒 4. Okay, so break it down: 23A EPHEMERAL DS -or- EPH EMERALDS 34A GILGAMESH OW -or- GIL GAMESHOW 93A FIRSTRATE GY -or- FIR STRATEGY 107A OBAMACARE NA -or- OBA MACARENA 3D AIREDALE RT -or- AI REDALERT 11D SUPERMAN ENT -or- SU PERMANENT 63D HAMMERING UE -or- HAM MERINGUE 74D WISEACRE ST -or- WI SEACREST
In reality, no biggie. Elegance and perfection took a hit there, but I still had a good time. Plus, the fill and the cluing were worthy of this very fine theme. These last few days have been a mind-spin of wonderous crosswords, IMHO, and I’m thrillin’! It’s as if there were one teeny tiny election and suddenly everything looks (is?) better.
I want to argue that soccer players are crossword worthy, but even though I knew him Nicolas Pépé isn't. He has started all of 2 games out of 9 so far this season. And the only reason I remembered him is because he got a red card for head butting an opponent in his last game. He is a flop, not a standout star.
I'm about to start on the main event but I do so with diminished confidence as I was just defeated by a Natick in the Mini. A Pixar film crossing a vodka did me in.
I love seeing words mesh like these theme answers do – they bring a spontaneous “Wow!” out of me -- and I loved trying to get every single theme answer with as few letters filled in as possible, making this puzzle engaging from beginning to end.
Regarding difficulty, the puzzle included a nice blend of gimmes and stuckness for me, so this was neither a breeze nor a trudge – a very nice pace for the big Sunday solve, closer to sipping than gulping.
Sunday in the grid with Eric, a most lovely diversion today. Thank you, sir!
A pleasant-enough diversion, and I managed this in good (for me!) time. I disagree this is "grid gibberish" - it's a crossword puzzle, not an oratory or stand-up comedy. Even to see that certain words or phrases can start a different word/phrase, well, I appreciate the ingenuity, the vision. The fill was a nice mix of old and new, across a wide range of topics. I don't know rap or hip-hop, but I DO know "A-A-LV-I-I-IN!!!" (and have that song on a cassette tape!).
And I ask the Trekkers out there: Are Klingons really "ETs"? Are all aliens "ETs"? Klingons may be extraterrestrial beings, but IMO, ET the Extraterrestrial was a movie and a specific non-human alien, who decidedly does not conjure up Klingons...
Finally, to combine architecture (Rex's "architectural exercise") and Dante: https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/image/souza-visualizations/
I enjoyed the puzzle, and I appreciate the theme and the effort. The way I see it, writing about an entertainment “thud” is like writing about a thud when an Olympic figure-skater – one who is not in contention for a medal – makes a mistake and falls. I’m wondering if Rex can do better because reading his reviews lately is becoming like listening to someone who never buys a lottery ticket drone on about what he or she would do with the winnings. The thud can only happen when one takes a risk. Not much risk involved in a blog.
I though Gilgamesh in a puzzle was very cool. Though I have read the actual story the first thing that came to mind was Captain Picard tell the story to the dying alien captain in the episode Darmok. But ran into a little trouble with rapper I've never heard of crossing a newer Star Wars character I've never heard of. I haven't watched any of the movies since Disney bought the francise and don't feel like I'm missing much. But it hurt me in the puzzle today.
A pleasant enough diversion. Figured out the theme pretty quickly (I believe it was AIREDALERT that did it). My favorite of the bunch might be OBAMACARENA. I liked most of them, actually. GILGAMESHOW makes me feel a little bit smart. Which is arguably not good for my soul, but I'm not above a little pick-me-up like that in the morning.
Didn't get seriously stuck on anything and my time was good for me.
I notice that SLAV didn't upset Rex. I seem to recall he didn't like chess-related clues. Perhaps The Queen's Gambit has turned him around?
PEP PILL made me laugh a little, like something you might hear in Hairspray. I think @Giovanni was on to something yesterday about the general nature of Rex's complaints, but I like old-timey expressions. For roughly the same reason I like the REBUSES in the low-tech GAME SHOW Concentration: helps me REMINISCE about my childhood. And STINKO, why not? 40's movies are fun. Men in hats saying, "Whaddaya, some kind of WISEACRE?"
Not for me - this one was STINKO. No aha or wow moment - just a 30 minute slog of boring fill. When seeing PONTIAC is a highlight - something is amiss. Favorite was CHIVAS - at the top of the list of dreck was the VISA/VIS A VIS inclusion.
Hanging Christmas lights today - a hatable task for me. This puzzle did nothing to help.
Kinda felt the same way as @Rex on this one, where is the humor? Also I was surprised at the 4 letter dupe 92D VIS-A-VIS, 105D VISA, that really should not have happened. Never heard of Pepe either and thought the same about Pep Pill - seems like something you would hear in “Mad Men”
This was a relatively easy solve and good overall puzz. I lucked out and got the theme early with EPHEMERALDS and AIREDALERT. Like Rex wrote, EPHEMERALDS is fun and rolls off the tongue. It was disappointing that none of of the other theme answers really worked orally (maybe HAMMERINGUE).
@Eric, a fine Sun. challenge. Thank you! :) I only partially grokked the theme, but will learn more, I'm sure, from @Rex when I read the comments.
Not a good start in the NW, for 17A entered "sonata", 5D "lase" and couldn't get anything to cross. So, erased "sonata" and moved to the N.Dak. for 18A "beagle". The rest was slow and sometimes shaky, but finally managed to get back to the NW and finish in av. time.
Had a "metronome" on top of our piano; don't recall if Mom used it or not. The family would gather around for sing-alongs at every opportunity. I can remember her often playing me to sleep at night.
p.g. -3
Peace Mino-wiijiindiwin Pace Frieden Salam Paix Mir Pax Vrede 平和 🕊
Wish I had known that Airedales were terriers, or that they spelled their names with two e's. But I'm the guy who thought the Scottish Deerhound had no shot in the National Dog Show, so pfft.
Those who enjoy number puzzles (like Ken Ken or Sudoku) don't need to figure out reasons for a puzzle theme. Those types of puzzles exist to solve and move on. Really nothing to understand, just to accent and move on.
Before moving on, I would say it took me a while to figure out the gimmick, but once I did it became relatively easy to solve the theme answers. But I never realized all the doubled letters were exactly six letters long. So I never understood the relationship of the puzzle title to the theme until I read the full explanation of the theme. While that constraint may seem impressive to some, I guess it's an easy task for someone good at programming. All that matters to me is that I enjoyed this Sunday puzzle more than the average Sunday puzzle.
Hooray to OBAMACARENA, EPHEMERALD, GILGAMESHOW, and HAMMERINGUE. Boo to SUPERMANENT, FIRSTRATEGY, and AIREDALERT (Airedale seems like an obscure word... I feel like someone else really could've gone here). WISEACREST I could take or leave, the proper noun (like Airedale) feels like a cop-out.
The crosses of EROICA, NACRES, ENES, and AIREDALERT (again) got me really tripped up, but I need to tip my hat on a clue for ANTE that I've never seen before. Overall pretty solid but yeah, could use more OOMPH.
I agree with those who found the theme to be quite a dud today. It took every single cross to get the twist/trick, and even after that none of the theme entries seemed very “natural”. Thus, the theme became an additional hindrance (in addition to the unusually foggy PPP). I slogged my way through quite a bit of it to see if there was anything more - eventually ran into the nonsense like DYS, ETCETC and OBI. lost interest and read Rex’s write-up to see if I missed anything (I didn’t).
The Times seems to run quite a few of these “gimmicky” puzzles - which probably impress other constructors, but I would argue at the cost of a diminished solving experience.
This was a relatively easy solve and good overall puzz. I lucked out and got the theme early with EPHEMERALDS and AIREDALERT. Like Rex wrote, EPHEMERALDS is fun and rolls off the tongue. It was disappointing that none of of the other theme answers really worked orally (maybe HAMMERINGUE).
EMPHEMERALDS works for me as a single made up word as defined. Thought it was great. Soon found out they all were not in this vein, but the general trick was clear though the words were not always easy.
Just flew through most East and Middle N to S strip. My brain stopped working in the West or it left my wheelhouse or something. That third took twice as long as the other 2/3's. Enjoyed the theme.
There seemed to be a lot of paired clues and paired answers. Good. Felt like a lot of PPP too. Not so good.
@Anonymous (Jim C., in Maine), 8:02: You piqued my Latin interest! A search of my Webster's (for the English) and Cassell's (for the Latin)yielded: "Rebus" is derived from the ablative plural of the noun "res" (thing... so rebus = "of things" or "with things?"). Ergo, "rebus" is itself not a Latin word in the nominative case. The plural (nominative) of "res" is "res" (fifth declension).
Thanks also to Todd (7:41) for Gilgamesh on the Darmok episode of ST:TNG!
Every time I think that there's no new kind of wordplay -- i.e. a way of playing with words -- that hasn't already been done in one puzzle or another, someone comes along and surprises me. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like this before, and it's great, great fun.
Most of the clues for the overlapping words, such as that for EPHEMERALDS, were apt, completely fair and very amusing. I did think one missed the mark, however, and it could have been so easily rectified. FIRSTRATEGY shouldn't have been "Magnificent plan of action"; it should have been "Initial plan of action." But that's the only hiccup.
Because the fill surrounding the theme answers was pretty easy, the entire puzzle was quite easy as a result. But I was completely engaged the whole time -- not bored for a single minute.
In fact it put me in such a good mood this morning that I think I'll go and dance the OBAMACARENA to celebrate.
Duplications normally don’t bother me much, but ICIER and ICE MELT really scorched my anchovies.
I’ve seen The Force Awakens. I knew the pronunciation, but not the spelling. It could have been REA as in “Reagan”, REI as in “reign” or REY as in “Reynolds”. I reasoned that if it were REI, TILER would have been clued as a word, not a name. And if it were REY, either REY would be clued as Spanish king, or TYLER would be clued as one of the legitimately famous TYLERS. You have an actual US president available to you … use it. So I went with REA/TALER for my DNF.
I knew I'd like this from the title "Six Pack" (although the theme had nothing to do with beer). This was definitely a nice construction feat. Some complain about lack of humor. C'mon OBAMA MACARENA isn't funny? I'd pay to see that. And I appreciated WISEACRE SEACREST. I've been amazed at how far a tiny bit of "talent" (?) can take an emcee.
For my thirst, I got a nice IPA, CHIVAS Regal (although I'd prefer a single malt...) and straight ETHANOL. Throw in a PEP PILL and perhaps become a RAVER. Other fun things in the grid: dogs (AIREDALE, BEAGLE), music (SIDEMAN, EROICA, IN E, TYLER, RAPS, METRONOME), literature (ARAMIS, DANTE, GILGAMESH, "And still I RISE"), and a SANE president (OBAMA).
p.s. - Soccer player PEPE is definitely NOT crossword-worthy. He's not even a top 50 premier league player. Back to Lepue clue, please.
OBAMACARE MACARENA is both pretty funny by itself and wildly amusing if you imagine McConnell/Graham/Ernst ETC ETC doing it. It’s not as funny to imagine B.O. himself doing it because he’s athletic and you just know he’d look good dancing it. But, anyway, this was fun to suss out but in the end it is a “theme” based on the idea that letters make words. I think @pmdm gets at the central point of taste disagreement, this is a crossword more akin to sudoku than to wordplay. I imagine the spelling bee lovers will love this, but most of the amusement in the theme is from the improbable pairings, and there are only a couple of those.
@Joaquin - I really want ten Wikipedia article to actually say that. 😂😂😂
@travis - I had the same thought. When I think of standout Premier League players PÉPÉ definitely makes the top 300. I just did a quick search for news regarding PÉPÉ and they are all about him being unhappy with his lack of playing time.
@TTrimble - regarding the SLAV defense, my guess is Rex didn’t even see the clue.
@Anon/Jim C in Maine - Rebopodes! 🦑🦑
@Todd & @Colin - You might enjoy my “new” avatar. FYI - I stole this years ago and keep it in my photos for occasional use because it amuses me so much.
@kitshef - REY as in “Reynolds”. If we ever meet in real life I’m not at all sure we will understand each other. “Reynolds” sounds more like the “Ren” in Kylo Ren to me.
GILGAMESH seems to me like one of those epic poems just about everyone should have at least a passing familiarity with. Early example of the flood myth, early conceptions of power, good and evil, love, and the whole question of whether modern notions of sexual orientation can be seen in the text. The Stephen Mitchell translation is pretty accessible for modern readers.
This gets my oof de oof award. Gadzooks, this gave me the PEP PILL headache. CHIVAS does the same. Drink Talisker. Where to begin? SIX-PACK did nothing for me. I don't drink beer and those abs look like a colonoscopy gone wrong. I got all that splitting up thing with AIREDALEALERT, but man....I like to let out a little whoop...and not the whoopee cushion kind. This one had me wanting to sing along with ALVIN and SIMON.....you know, the ones that sound like they need their adenoids removed. @Frantic...Dang, girl.....you must've spent an hour composing your opus. It takes me about 24 to figure out how to make something bold...... I'm now going to go make a leftover sandwich.
I know a zillion people will point out @Nancy's misinterpretation of FIRST RATE STRATEGY as FIR[ST]RATEGY but I bring it up because it's exactly how I parsed it, which made the clue nonsensical. I did the same thing with GILGAMESH SHOW rather than GILGAMESH GAME SHOW. So I didn't appreciate the full beauty of the theme nor did the title make any sense at all.
So I apologize to Eric Berlin for not seeing the whole scheme. It's very nice.
Still, the themers that are the most fun to say are EPHEMERALDS and HAMMERINGUE. OBAMACARENA is cute and I was glad I knew of GILGAMESH which was fun to see in a grid.
REMINISCE and METRONOME (I have a beautiful old one), the clue for CUE BALL all very nice. Am I the only one who, when seeing NEST clued as a cozy home, thinks of birds in trees and wonders just how cozy that is?
Nicholas Pepe is a Premier League standout only in the sense that every Arsenal supporter would love to see him sent far, far away. He's been useless since joining (including being sent off for nutting an opposing player in last week's game).
Liked it although, I had no idea what the theme title, "six pack" was referring to. Knew there was overlap, but never thought to count the spaces that overlapped. Never heard of gilgamesh, but game show fit the clue, so left that be. Favorite answer was 107 across obamacarena (dance celebrating 2010 legislation), had ac for ob for a while.
As someone who was born and bred in Liverpool, and follows the Premier League closer than the political news, I can tell you that Pepe is anything but a standout star. In fact the word is that Arsenal are trying to get rid of him (trade him in American speak). There are far better footballers that could have been included.
I guess if you do ten crosswords a day you have the right to be supercritical but as one who is basically a NYT solver this was a magnificently clever Sunday. Rally enjoyed it.
I'll join @Nancy in the little corner that holds those of us who found this lots of fun. Having the tail of one word/phrase become the beginning of another word/phrase was new, at least to me. Trying to guess answers based on partials interests me, and they even had my BEAGLE, who was not Snoopy, but Snuffy. We started out together as puppies and he lived to be 15, which is the age I had arbitrarily chosen as being old enough to say good bye.
Also my friend the AIREDALE lover because of their enthusiasm and general nuttiness, always described Rob Gronkowsi as the AIREDALE of football players, so that was a smile.
@kitshef - I spent a few nanoseconds trying to come up with an English word that had REY pronounced as in Star Wars and failed. I didn’t think to go to Iceland. 👍🏽👍🏽. Besides, REYkjavik always makes me think of Craig Ferguson. 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽 I’ve been known to waste a whole evening watching clips from his late night show on YouTube.
Hey All ! Wrote a long post on the computer, but Google decided not to recognize my account, so I lost it.
Short version, funky puz, liked it, didn't figure out the six letters combined thing, thought it was only a few, WISEACREST only as WISE, not WISE ACRE. OBAMACARENA only ad OBAMA, etc. Did see EPHERMAL EMERALDS, and thought that the outlier!
@anonymous 10:10- Just a hunch but I’m guessing Nicolas Pepe was included because the name fit in the grid well so unless these better footballers you refer to are named Pepe than I can’t see your point.
Fun and helpful theme. Faster than usual in spite of all of the names. My spelling is getting better since I’ve been doing SB, so very few write-overs today.
Spoiler alert. Gilgamesh does not presage, anticipate, entertain or explore modern notions of sexual orientation. In fact, none of the scores of thousands of cuneiform texts I’ve read do.
@footballers-The problem with Pepe as a surname is that it's unusual. If you're not going to use "famous LePew" as a clue, maybe go with Jose, to his friends, or something like that.
As I was solving, this one teetered between "worthy brain-racker" and "wearing me out," but in the end, I have to hand it to the constructor for his creativity and skill. It seems to me to be quite a feat to assemble those four crossing six-packs, and melding GILGAMESH with a GAME SHOW and OBAMA with the MACARENA are zany enough to get smiles from me, not to mention the HAMMER + MERINGUE pie disaster.
Z , Words that pronounce r-e-y as it is in Star Wars... you couldn’t come up with any? Don’t have to go to Iceland. Try your local farm for a greylag goose. I Iive near the water so I see osprey from time to time, my greyhounds don’t like them. Say there’s something fishy about them preying on lampreys. Besides,, what do they know? They couldn’t catch Reynard who was giving me grief. I could on, but why kick a greybeard when he’s down? Wouldn’t be treyf.
I’ll take a six pack to go on any Sunday in place of the usual bloated grids. More often Black Butte Porter rather than an IPA, but like puzzles a matter of taste. Thanks Mr Berlin glad you RANG iN with this one.
Is "bicep" informal? Or just plain wrong? There is no such thing, of course. But even informal usage (read that, mistaken usage) would make it plural when thinking of the target of chin ups. Few people I know do one armed chin ups! So even people who think bicep is the singular of biceps would still say, while doing chin ups, "I'm working on my biceps."
I'm surprised no one pointed out the redundant entries of 108D CAME (clued as "Showed up") and 111A ARRIVE (clued as "Turn up"). The similarity was jarring to me. Otherwise I liked the puzzle. Happy last-day-of-Thanksgiving-weekend everyone!
@Anon/Samuel Noah Kramer - Tell it to The Columbia Anthology of Gay Literature, among others that are easy enough to find with uncle Google. What seems clear enough is that the Victorian tendency in our culture to desexualize texts makes sussing out what is in the text and what is modern readers imputing modern mores is hard.
@Cliff - Unless you’re studying for your MCATs BICEP is fine. Descriptive dictionaries accept it and you can even find this usage by medical doctors on the interwebs.
Re REY - I can’t believe I didn’t think of “grey” given the “grey/gray” conundrum. My only excuse is I spent my nanoseconds focused on words that begin with REY as in REYkjavik.
@Newboy - I’m more of a breakfast stout or Duck Rabbit Milk Stout or (when winter is in the “is it ever going to end” phase) <a href="https://www.newhollandbrew.com/beer/#dragons-milk/”>Dragon’s Milk</a> guy. I’m still more of an IPA guy most of the year.
In defense of the “standout” part of the clue, PÉPÉ’s transfer fee and subsequent performance does make him “stand out.” Yeah, I’m not convinced, either.
I don’t normally bother (too much counting) but the <b>PPP </b>today is indeed in the excessive range. 47/136, for 35%. Another reason I don’t normally count on Sundays is that I’m not sure the percentages have the same impact on a puzzle that is double the size of a daily puzzle (441 total squares as opposed to 225 in a 15x15 daily grid). Mathematically a percentage should represent roughly the same impact regardless of grid size, but 35% on a Sunday seems less densely packed than 35% during the week does. Perhaps the more mathematically fluent have an suggestion why this might be so.
I really wanna see a SUPERMAN PERMANENT. Is that with that funny little comic book curl-over, in front? And with the all-blue tint? And that stays in place, even when flyin at super-sonic speeds, outdoors? … After six months without a proper haircut, the closest M&A has gotten to that is a BLOOPERMANENT.
staff weeject pick: ITE. It's a DES. [Prefix of desperation.] Better clue: {I ET TE??}.
Was a pretty eazy-E SunPuz solvequest at our house, once M&A caught on to what to splatz in at the front end of -EMERALDS. That was a fairly hefty SUPERSPLATZMENT nanosecond sink, I'd hafta grant. Definitely not EPHEMERAL-like (-DS).
ICEMELT + ICIER is a bit repetitive, as @kitshef wisely pointed out. M&A would sorta also like to chip IRISE + ARIZ into that REPEATMOSS category. har
Thanx for the eight six-packs, Mr. Berlin. [hic] [haec] [hoc]
Anon-11:46 Gooner referenced anon 10:10 “ There are far better footballers that could have been included.” Unless they’re named Pepe they couldn’t have been included. The point was apt.
Ephermeralds, one of best of the bunch since the pronunciation and emphasis of the component syllables doesn't need to change, I loved it. Obamacarena too! I will probably think of this happily every time I go to the doctor's office, and I believe the waiting room experience could be substantially improved by a few Obamacerena flash mobs.
@JC66. If you ask me (well...you don't and you won't). CHIVAS is one of the most overrated, overpriced blended scotch whiskey's out there. The US did the same with the two other favorite "unblended" Scotch - Glenlivet and Glenfiddich. Good commercials, good PR and nothing else. To me, CHIVAS smells like bananas and is harsh as hell. I'd rather Cutty Sark it....... Come over for some Talisker.......
@GILL 1000am So happy you're back! LOL - "a colonoscopy gone wrong." Yes, but are SIX-PACK abs the worst thing that could go wrong? I might have gone a tad overboard, but I actually had to write everything out in order to understand the link between the title and the theme. How pathetic is that? (from there it's basically a matter of copy/paste)
Not exactly gripping commentary, but perhaps more illuminative of my thought process.
Agree with Rex and others that EPHEMERALDS is the standout themer for all the reasons stated, but mostly because it is the only one that can make any sense when said aloud...to my ear anyway. I think it's a syllabic stress thing. OBAMACARENA comes close, but not quite.
BTW, for some added fun: On the Wordplay blog, EB posted some additional posers. Here ya go!
Crazy antics in the upper level of the theater? MEZ _ _ _ _ _ _ SS Burns musicians in a pit? SC _ _ _ _ _ _ TRA Pro-woman clergyman? FE _ _ _ _ _ _ ER Dog and cat lovers somewhere in South Africa? CA _ _ _ _ _ _ ERS Remove a kind of pasta from deep inside the earth? EX _ _ _ _ _ _ LLI “Thus, we should plant many more trees?” THE _ _ _ _ _ _ ST
There is also a link for the solutions should anyone want them.
@Frantic, thanks for posting the additional examples -- lots of fun, once I get the basic idea. In the actual puzzle, I never thought to think about the title, so never noticed that the overlap was always 6 letters. I liked it anyway, but like it more now. It also reminded me that I have been meaning to read GILGAMESH, but have yet to get around to it.
While still probably not crossword worthy, Pepe Reina is better than Nicolas Pepe. Anyone with a 20-year career most of which with stretches at clubs at least as big as Arsenal is noteworthy.
Found this somewhat boring though I enjoyed the theme. It was one of those puzzles I call a "fill-in" puzzle: I start in the SE (I do it with pen and paper)and just work my way up. I was able to "fill-in" the grid as I moved up without any difficulty so I missed the challenge of a tougher puzzle. I'm glad so many of you liked it. I did like 'obamacarena' theme and, particularly, ,ephemeralds': Speaking of ephemeralds, my wife Naomi's birthstone is emerald and all of her jewelry of any consequence has them. About 30 years ago, Naomi came home and said she had visited our local jeweler and asked them to set aside an emerald ring. I stopped by the next day ...I'm still not sure why she didn't just buy it that day...and looked at the ring which was fairly delicate with a tiny stone. I asked if I could have the stone replaced with a larger one and they said yes, the setting could handle it. They had a tray of emeralds sent up from the city and I selected a nice one-carat Columbian stone which they mounted; it became a combination engagement/wedding/anniversary ring. A couple of years later, while she was at the local college rehearsing her dance company, someone came into the house...no break-in since we haven't locked the doors in 41 years...and stole the ring and a few other items. Naomi was convinced that it was an inside job, that it was taken by the husband of one of her dancers who had been in our house before since so little of the house had been disturbed. We filed the insurance claim and police report, quite sure we'd never see the ring again. The owners of the shop where we purchased the ring had retired and closed up and a new jeweler had opened up down the block from them. A month or so later, on a whim, Naomi stopped in and asked if they had any emeralds and they showed her a few uninteresting pieces. She asked if they had anything else. They reached under the counter and pulled out a tray and, lo and behold, there was her ring. Naomi had no interest in retribution or the law; she just wanted her ring back and she bought it on the spot. And so, it wasn't so ephemerald after all.
@bocamp - from your link, a distinction that is more logical linguistically than anatomically made me chuckle. Language users being capricious? Who knew?
Looking at PEPE options there’s not a lot of better options. PEPÉ Le Pew and PEPÉ the internet meme both have issues that makes avoiding them probably wise. Then there’s a minor Muppets character. PEPE Reina is probably the best PEPE clue. I prefer the PELE/CULPA solution. PELÉ is most definitely the most crossworthy of the bunch.
Sort of got the overlapped theme early, but never bothered to count out the six letter overlap. Agree with Rex - so what? Why six letters - no idea and nothing to make me care. Which pretty much sums up my feelings about this puzzle - so what, who cares?
Re BICEP/s: thanks to @bocamp for handily linking to the Merriam-Webster entry.
Much like the antipode/antipodes debate of 8/02/20 (this blog), what we have here is a case of back-formation. "Biceps" is usually spelled the same in the singular and plural (although "bicepses" is attested as well), so saying "my biceps are aching" would be acceptable standard English. For an English speaker who hears that enough times, it's instinctual to assume that the singular is formed by removing the affix -s that we typically use to form plurals. (No shit, Sherlock, did I hear somebody say?)
Anyway, nothing wrong with it, particularly; as I say it's a natural linguistic process, and maybe you could argue that "my right bicep hurts" also sounds more euphonious in English than "my right biceps hurts". I'm very glad that @cliff and @Big Bruiser point out that "bicep" is considered wrong in some circles -- I strongly suspect I'd never troubled to look it up and very likely I've used "bicep" myself, and now may make an adjustment depending on which crowd I find myself in -- but hey, if that's wrong according to original usage, then a whooooole lot else is also very wrong, things we say every day that pass unnoticed. I don't know how many readers here know the etymology of "nice", for instance, but it illustrates well this basic truism.
This will come as a shock to some of you but constructors play loosey goosey with the English (and other) languages. Bicep will always be with us. SOC* will always be with us. kwitcherbellyakin'.
@JC66 - as I said, normally dupes are OK by me, so SUPERMAN/SIDEMAN was OK, as were the clues for 70A 'RESIDENT: Suffix' and 80D 'Mustachioed Springfield RESIDENT'.
I join the others in thanking you for the extra themers, @Frantic. These are just as much fun to suss out as the ones that are in the puzzle. So the happiness of my morning is now extended into the late afternoon. Like @Jberg, I'll take more of these any time.
Z, No thank you. I literally wrote the book on Sumeria. I understand that finding homosexuality in ancient texts, and normalizing it, is all the rage these days. I assure you, it will pass. There is nothing in those works to suggest homosexuality. Franky you’re out of your depth. Not so long ago, you used to,post in Greek (trying to emulate Attic with varying degrees of success). I am quite familiar with Fone’s work. Dover’s too. You’re a poseur with a web browser. Nearly all their work is rubbish in service of an an agenda rather than truth. Efforts desperate to accommodate deviancy. They are, of course, all the rage in certain circles. They are, however, not normative.
In case anyone was wondering S. N. Kramer died in 1990. https://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/27/obituaries/samuel-noah-kramer-93-dies-was-leading-authority-on-sumer.html
I found this puzzle to be light hearted and delightful. I really enjoyed myself. Sometimes...puzzles can be simply for pleasure without a special, hidden, often trite, meaning.
Consider that Canada's flag sports a maple leaf. Maple leaf -> maple tree -> maple syrup. They love the stuff!
Finished this and didn’t quite get the entirety of the « wacky « clues but enjoyed all the same. My copy of puzzle had a line running under the top row of clue numbers so I spent the whole time trying to see how those numbers, 1-16, fit in. Which of course they didn’t. Just a printing smudge. At least Rex wasn’t so negative this week.
@rondo - The comments appear for approval as they are submitted, not by the day they are submitted for. As of my typing this there are no comments waiting to be approved.
Not much to say about this one. Two concepts Smooshed together; I have a feeling you could do this all day. It's fine, though, and dense, with no fewer than eight examples. He did a pretty good job of keeping the fill clean, too, except for letting the EKE virus get in. Man, that sucker is hard to kill!
I'd like to see someone do the OBAMACARENA. That would be fun to watch. Birdie.
Just want to say that this was enjoyable. The overlapping 6-letter thing together with the clues were a help in getting the themers. I particularly liked OBAMACARENA. Pretty tight puzzle overall with good fill throughout the big grid.
Better concept than most Sundays. First one in - EPHEMERALDS - was the best IMHO. The others didn't pop as much, but still fun searching for the overlap. Bonus points for theme density.
NATASHA. Odessa, Ukraine. Yeah baby.
Proof here that Sunday puzzles don't have to suck.
.png)
According to Wikipedia, Gilgamesh is considered the “Tyler, the Creator of the late 2nd millennium BCE”. Not surprised that I am unfamiliar with both of them.
ReplyDeleteARGGH!
ReplyDeleteSooo close! I actually had fun figuring this out. Allow me to elaborate.
1. Find the little play on overlapping words to make some sort of punny portmanteau. ✔
2. Realize that they can be split 2 different ways. ✔
3. Suss out how the title (Six-Pack) figures into all this… crickets. 😒
4. Okay, so break it down:
23A EPHEMERAL DS -or- EPH EMERALDS
34A GILGAMESH OW -or- GIL GAMESHOW
93A FIRSTRATE GY -or- FIR STRATEGY
107A OBAMACARE NA -or- OBA MACARENA
3D AIREDALE RT -or- AI REDALERT
11D SUPERMAN ENT -or- SU PERMANENT
63D HAMMERING UE -or- HAM MERINGUE
74D WISEACRE ST -or- WI SEACREST
**Still Nothing** Next?
EPHEMERAL EMERALDS EMERAL (6)!
GILGAMESH GAMESHOW GAMESH (6)!!
FIRSTRATE STRATEGY STRATE (6)!!!
OBAMACARE MACARENA MACARE (6)!!!!
AIREDALE REDALERT REDALE (6)!!!!!
SUPERMAN PERMANENT PERMAN (6)!!!!!!
HAMMERING MERINGUE MERING (6)!!!!!!! Holy cow! Seven of these suckers!
WI(S)EACRE (S)EACRE(S) SEACRES (7) ALT: SEACRE or EACRES
Aaaand Pfft!!
5. I repeat: ARGGH!
In reality, no biggie. Elegance and perfection took a hit there, but I still had a good time. Plus, the fill and the cluing were worthy of this very fine theme. These last few days have been a mind-spin of wonderous crosswords, IMHO, and I’m thrillin’!
It’s as if there were one teeny tiny election and suddenly everything looks (is?) better.
🧠🧠.5 (solve)
🧠🧠 🧠🧠 (theme/title reconcile)
🎉🎉🎉🎉.5
Signed,
Jolly Sloth
I want to argue that soccer players are crossword worthy, but even though I knew him Nicolas Pépé isn't. He has started all of 2 games out of 9 so far this season. And the only reason I remembered him is because he got a red card for head butting an opponent in his last game. He is a flop, not a standout star.
ReplyDeleteGELID/GILGAMESHOW cross was tough
ReplyDeleteA delightful romp and a truly aha moment when I finally dissed out the theme.
ReplyDeleteTis the season for Scrooge...
Easy-medium. It took some mental gymnastics to grok what was going but the theme actually help with the solve towards the end. Liked it.
ReplyDeleteI'm about to start on the main event but I do so with diminished confidence as I was just defeated by a Natick in the Mini. A Pixar film crossing a vodka did me in.
ReplyDeleteI love seeing words mesh like these theme answers do – they bring a spontaneous “Wow!” out of me -- and I loved trying to get every single theme answer with as few letters filled in as possible, making this puzzle engaging from beginning to end.
ReplyDeleteRegarding difficulty, the puzzle included a nice blend of gimmes and stuckness for me, so this was neither a breeze nor a trudge – a very nice pace for the big Sunday solve, closer to sipping than gulping.
Sunday in the grid with Eric, a most lovely diversion today. Thank you, sir!
What about the beer brand names in the themers? That was hard to grok.
ReplyDeleteWhat?? Not that kind of six pack.
DeleteA pleasant-enough diversion, and I managed this in good (for me!) time. I disagree this is "grid gibberish" - it's a crossword puzzle, not an oratory or stand-up comedy. Even to see that certain words or phrases can start a different word/phrase, well, I appreciate the ingenuity, the vision. The fill was a nice mix of old and new, across a wide range of topics. I don't know rap or hip-hop, but I DO know "A-A-LV-I-I-IN!!!" (and have that song on a cassette tape!).
ReplyDeleteAnd I ask the Trekkers out there: Are Klingons really "ETs"? Are all aliens "ETs"? Klingons may be extraterrestrial beings, but IMO, ET the Extraterrestrial was a movie and a specific non-human alien, who decidedly does not conjure up Klingons...
Finally, to combine architecture (Rex's "architectural exercise") and Dante:
https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/image/souza-visualizations/
I enjoyed the puzzle, and I appreciate the theme and the effort. The way I see it, writing about an entertainment “thud” is like writing about a thud when an Olympic figure-skater – one who is not in contention for a medal – makes a mistake and falls. I’m wondering if Rex can do better because reading his reviews lately is becoming like listening to someone who never buys a lottery ticket drone on about what he or she would do with the winnings. The thud can only happen when one takes a risk. Not much risk involved in a blog.
ReplyDeleteI though Gilgamesh in a puzzle was very cool. Though I have read the actual story the first thing that came to mind was Captain Picard tell the story to the dying alien captain in the episode Darmok. But ran into a little trouble with rapper I've never heard of crossing a newer Star Wars character I've never heard of. I haven't watched any of the movies since Disney bought the francise and don't feel like I'm missing much. But it hurt me in the puzzle today.
ReplyDeleteA pleasant enough diversion. Figured out the theme pretty quickly (I believe it was AIREDALERT that did it). My favorite of the bunch might be OBAMACARENA. I liked most of them, actually. GILGAMESHOW makes me feel a little bit smart. Which is arguably not good for my soul, but I'm not above a little pick-me-up like that in the morning.
ReplyDeleteDidn't get seriously stuck on anything and my time was good for me.
I notice that SLAV didn't upset Rex. I seem to recall he didn't like chess-related clues. Perhaps The Queen's Gambit has turned him around?
PEP PILL made me laugh a little, like something you might hear in Hairspray. I think @Giovanni was on to something yesterday about the general nature of Rex's complaints, but I like old-timey expressions. For roughly the same reason I like the REBUSES in the low-tech GAME SHOW Concentration: helps me REMINISCE about my childhood. And STINKO, why not? 40's movies are fun. Men in hats saying, "Whaddaya, some kind of WISEACRE?"
Anyway, thanks Eric Berlin! It was a sweet ride.
Not for me - this one was STINKO. No aha or wow moment - just a 30 minute slog of boring fill. When seeing PONTIAC is a highlight - something is amiss. Favorite was CHIVAS - at the top of the list of dreck was the VISA/VIS A VIS inclusion.
ReplyDeleteHanging Christmas lights today - a hatable task for me. This puzzle did nothing to help.
Rebuses or rebi or rebus (Latin fourth declension plural, if I remember my 50-years-ago Latin classes correctly) or rebodes?
ReplyDeleteJust asking.
Didn’t like the puzzle much. Too many simple multi word answers (e.g., INAPILE) when I was expecting a more exotic/interesting single word.
— Jim C. in Maine
Kinda felt the same way as @Rex on this one, where is the humor? Also I was surprised at the 4 letter dupe 92D VIS-A-VIS, 105D VISA, that really should not have happened. Never heard of Pepe either and thought the same about Pep Pill - seems like something you would hear in “Mad Men”
ReplyDeleteICEMELT and ICIER. Another faux pas.
DeleteThis was a relatively easy solve and good overall puzz. I lucked out and got the theme early with EPHEMERALDS and AIREDALERT. Like Rex wrote, EPHEMERALDS is fun and rolls off the tongue. It was disappointing that none of of the other theme answers really worked orally (maybe HAMMERINGUE).
Delete@Eric, a fine Sun. challenge. Thank you! :) I only partially grokked the theme, but will learn more, I'm sure, from @Rex when I read the comments.
ReplyDeleteNot a good start in the NW, for 17A entered "sonata", 5D "lase" and couldn't get anything to cross. So, erased "sonata" and moved to the N.Dak. for 18A "beagle". The rest was slow and sometimes shaky, but finally managed to get back to the NW and finish in av. time.
New: "rang in"; "Pepe"; "raps" (as clued); "Bill Nye" (as clued); "Natasha"; "side man"; "Eliza"; "Aramis" (as clued); "Her"; "Slav" (as clued).
Hazy: "Eroica"; "Chivas"; "plus one"; "Rey"; "ethanol"; "enes"; "Mocha"; "wands"; "sleep" (as clued).
Fav. clues/answers: "beagle"; "cue ball"; "shade"; "hiss"; "atlas"; "reminisce"; "in a pile"; "metronome"; "oomph"; "rebuses"; "livened"; "esc"; "tidings"; "re-save"; "graph"; "lase"; "pen pals"; "cuppa"; "plus one"; "aces"; "obi".
WOTD: "Pontiac"(Ottawa leader)
LOTD: Ojibwe
SOTD: Symphony No. 3 in E flat major (Op. 55) "Eroica" - Berliner Philharmoniker
F/DOTD: "Mocha"
Had a "metronome" on top of our piano; don't recall if Mom used it or not. The family would gather around for sing-alongs at every opportunity. I can remember her often playing me to sleep at night.
p.g. -3
Peace Mino-wiijiindiwin Pace Frieden Salam Paix Mir Pax Vrede 平和 🕊
Wish I had known that Airedales were terriers, or that they spelled their names with two e's. But I'm the guy who thought the Scottish Deerhound had no shot in the National Dog Show, so pfft.
ReplyDeleteThose who enjoy number puzzles (like Ken Ken or Sudoku) don't need to figure out reasons for a puzzle theme. Those types of puzzles exist to solve and move on. Really nothing to understand, just to accent and move on.
ReplyDeleteBefore moving on, I would say it took me a while to figure out the gimmick, but once I did it became relatively easy to solve the theme answers. But I never realized all the doubled letters were exactly six letters long. So I never understood the relationship of the puzzle title to the theme until I read the full explanation of the theme. While that constraint may seem impressive to some, I guess it's an easy task for someone good at programming. All that matters to me is that I enjoyed this Sunday puzzle more than the average Sunday puzzle.
Hooray to OBAMACARENA, EPHEMERALD, GILGAMESHOW, and HAMMERINGUE. Boo to SUPERMANENT, FIRSTRATEGY, and AIREDALERT (Airedale seems like an obscure word... I feel like someone else really could've gone here). WISEACREST I could take or leave, the proper noun (like Airedale) feels like a cop-out.
ReplyDeleteThe crosses of EROICA, NACRES, ENES, and AIREDALERT (again) got me really tripped up, but I need to tip my hat on a clue for ANTE that I've never seen before. Overall pretty solid but yeah, could use more OOMPH.
I agree with those who found the theme to be quite a dud today. It took every single cross to get the twist/trick, and even after that none of the theme entries seemed very “natural”. Thus, the theme became an additional hindrance (in addition to the unusually foggy PPP). I slogged my way through quite a bit of it to see if there was anything more - eventually ran into the nonsense like DYS, ETCETC and OBI. lost interest and read Rex’s write-up to see if I missed anything (I didn’t).
ReplyDeleteThe Times seems to run quite a few of these “gimmicky” puzzles - which probably impress other constructors, but I would argue at the cost of a diminished solving experience.
I posted this earlier as a reply by mistake.
ReplyDeleteThis was a relatively easy solve and good overall puzz. I lucked out and got the theme early with EPHEMERALDS and AIREDALERT. Like Rex wrote, EPHEMERALDS is fun and rolls off the tongue. It was disappointing that none of of the other theme answers really worked orally (maybe HAMMERINGUE).
EMPHEMERALDS works for me as a single made up word as defined. Thought it was great. Soon found out they all were not in this vein, but the general trick was clear though the words were not always easy.
ReplyDeleteJust flew through most East and Middle N to S strip. My brain stopped working in the West or it left my wheelhouse or something. That third took twice as long as the other 2/3's. Enjoyed the theme.
There seemed to be a lot of paired clues and paired answers. Good. Felt like a lot of PPP too. Not so good.
@Anonymous (Jim C., in Maine), 8:02: You piqued my Latin interest! A search of my Webster's (for the English) and Cassell's (for the Latin)yielded: "Rebus" is derived from the ablative plural of the noun "res" (thing... so rebus = "of things" or "with things?"). Ergo, "rebus" is itself not a Latin word in the nominative case. The plural (nominative) of "res" is "res" (fifth declension).
ReplyDeleteThanks also to Todd (7:41) for Gilgamesh on the Darmok episode of ST:TNG!
Every time I think that there's no new kind of wordplay -- i.e. a way of playing with words -- that hasn't already been done in one puzzle or another, someone comes along and surprises me. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like this before, and it's great, great fun.
ReplyDeleteMost of the clues for the overlapping words, such as that for EPHEMERALDS, were apt, completely fair and very amusing. I did think one missed the mark, however, and it could have been so easily rectified. FIRSTRATEGY shouldn't have been "Magnificent plan of action"; it should have been "Initial plan of action." But that's the only hiccup.
Because the fill surrounding the theme answers was pretty easy, the entire puzzle was quite easy as a result. But I was completely engaged the whole time -- not bored for a single minute.
In fact it put me in such a good mood this morning that I think I'll go and dance the OBAMACARENA to celebrate.
Duplications normally don’t bother me much, but ICIER and ICE MELT really scorched my anchovies.
ReplyDeleteI’ve seen The Force Awakens. I knew the pronunciation, but not the spelling. It could have been REA as in “Reagan”, REI as in “reign” or REY as in “Reynolds”. I reasoned that if it were REI, TILER would have been clued as a word, not a name. And if it were REY, either REY would be clued as Spanish king, or TYLER would be clued as one of the legitimately famous TYLERS. You have an actual US president available to you … use it. So I went with REA/TALER for my DNF.
@Nancy (9:38) - I think you missed the wordplay on FIRSTRATEGY. The overlap is "first-rate" (not "first"), meaning magnificent, not initial.
ReplyDeleteThis entire week was great. This was fun to do while sitting outside, drinking coffee and watching birds and squirrels feed.
ReplyDeleteI knew I'd like this from the title "Six Pack" (although the theme had nothing to do with beer). This was definitely a nice construction feat. Some complain about lack of humor. C'mon OBAMA MACARENA isn't funny? I'd pay to see that. And I appreciated WISEACRE SEACREST. I've been amazed at how far a tiny bit of "talent" (?) can take an emcee.
ReplyDeleteFor my thirst, I got a nice IPA, CHIVAS Regal (although I'd prefer a single malt...) and straight ETHANOL. Throw in a PEP PILL and perhaps become a RAVER. Other fun things in the grid: dogs (AIREDALE, BEAGLE), music (SIDEMAN, EROICA, IN E, TYLER, RAPS, METRONOME), literature (ARAMIS, DANTE, GILGAMESH, "And still I RISE"), and a SANE president (OBAMA).
p.s. - Soccer player PEPE is definitely NOT crossword-worthy. He's not even a top 50 premier league player. Back to Lepue clue, please.
OBAMACARE MACARENA is both pretty funny by itself and wildly amusing if you imagine McConnell/Graham/Ernst ETC ETC doing it. It’s not as funny to imagine B.O. himself doing it because he’s athletic and you just know he’d look good dancing it.
ReplyDeleteBut, anyway, this was fun to suss out but in the end it is a “theme” based on the idea that letters make words. I think @pmdm gets at the central point of taste disagreement, this is a crossword more akin to sudoku than to wordplay. I imagine the spelling bee lovers will love this, but most of the amusement in the theme is from the improbable pairings, and there are only a couple of those.
@Joaquin - I really want ten Wikipedia article to actually say that. 😂😂😂
@travis - I had the same thought. When I think of standout Premier League players PÉPÉ definitely makes the top 300. I just did a quick search for news regarding PÉPÉ and they are all about him being unhappy with his lack of playing time.
@TTrimble - regarding the SLAV defense, my guess is Rex didn’t even see the clue.
@Anon/Jim C in Maine - Rebopodes! 🦑🦑
@Todd & @Colin - You might enjoy my “new” avatar. FYI - I stole this years ago and keep it in my photos for occasional use because it amuses me so much.
@kitshef - REY as in “Reynolds”. If we ever meet in real life I’m not at all sure we will understand each other. “Reynolds” sounds more like the “Ren” in Kylo Ren to me.
GILGAMESH seems to me like one of those epic poems just about everyone should have at least a passing familiarity with. Early example of the flood myth, early conceptions of power, good and evil, love, and the whole question of whether modern notions of sexual orientation can be seen in the text. The Stephen Mitchell translation is pretty accessible for modern readers.
This gets my oof de oof award. Gadzooks, this gave me the PEP PILL headache. CHIVAS does the same. Drink Talisker.
ReplyDeleteWhere to begin? SIX-PACK did nothing for me. I don't drink beer and those abs look like a colonoscopy gone wrong.
I got all that splitting up thing with AIREDALEALERT, but man....I like to let out a little whoop...and not the whoopee cushion kind. This one had me wanting to sing along with ALVIN and SIMON.....you know, the ones that sound like they need their adenoids removed.
@Frantic...Dang, girl.....you must've spent an hour composing your opus. It takes me about 24 to figure out how to make something bold......
I'm now going to go make a leftover sandwich.
I know a zillion people will point out @Nancy's misinterpretation of FIRST RATE STRATEGY as FIR[ST]RATEGY but I bring it up because it's exactly how I parsed it, which made the clue nonsensical. I did the same thing with GILGAMESH SHOW rather than GILGAMESH GAME SHOW. So I didn't appreciate the full beauty of the theme nor did the title make any sense at all.
ReplyDeleteSo I apologize to Eric Berlin for not seeing the whole scheme. It's very nice.
Still, the themers that are the most fun to say are EPHEMERALDS and HAMMERINGUE. OBAMACARENA is cute and I was glad I knew of GILGAMESH which was fun to see in a grid.
REMINISCE and METRONOME (I have a beautiful old one), the clue for CUE BALL all very nice. Am I the only one who, when seeing NEST clued as a cozy home, thinks of birds in trees and wonders just how cozy that is?
Nice Sunday puzzle, Eric Berlin, thanks.
Nicholas Pepe is a Premier League standout only in the sense that every Arsenal supporter would love to see him sent far, far away. He's been useless since joining (including being sent off for nutting an opposing player in last week's game).
ReplyDeleteLiked it although, I had no idea what the theme title, "six pack" was referring to. Knew there was overlap, but never thought to count the spaces that overlapped. Never heard of gilgamesh, but game show fit the clue, so left that be. Favorite answer was 107 across obamacarena (dance celebrating 2010 legislation), had ac for ob for a while.
ReplyDeleteAha, @Joaquin, I did miss it! Which is too bad, because it's a terrific themer. Many thanks for the clarification.
ReplyDeleteeven though I am getting faster at solving the Sunday puzzles they seem to be getting less fun to do and this was another example of that. Go figure.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who was born and bred in Liverpool, and follows the Premier League closer than the political news, I can tell you that Pepe is anything but a standout star. In fact the word is that Arsenal are trying to get rid of him (trade him in American speak). There are far better footballers that could have been included.
ReplyDeleteI guess if you do ten crosswords a day you have the right to be supercritical but as one who is basically a NYT solver this was a magnificently clever Sunday. Rally enjoyed it.
ReplyDelete@Z - how about REYkjavik then?
ReplyDeleteI'll join @Nancy in the little corner that holds those of us who found this lots of fun. Having the tail of one word/phrase become the beginning of another word/phrase was new, at least to me. Trying to guess answers based on partials interests me, and they even had my BEAGLE, who was not Snoopy, but Snuffy. We started out together as puppies and he lived to be 15, which is the age I had arbitrarily chosen as being old enough to say good bye.
ReplyDeleteAlso my friend the AIREDALE lover because of their enthusiasm and general nuttiness, always described Rob Gronkowsi as the AIREDALE of football players, so that was a smile.
Thanks for the fun EB. Very nice Sundecito.
@kitshef - I spent a few nanoseconds trying to come up with an English word that had REY pronounced as in Star Wars and failed. I didn’t think to go to Iceland. 👍🏽👍🏽. Besides, REYkjavik always makes me think of Craig Ferguson. 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽 I’ve been known to waste a whole evening watching clips from his late night show on YouTube.
ReplyDeleteRebus is dative and ablative plural of res (thing).
ReplyDeletehttp://latindictionary.wikidot.com/noun:res
So rebus means "to the things" or "by means of the things."
The nominative plural ("the things") is just res.
I cannot see that word without immediately thinking of the mystery series featuring the Scottish detective John Rebus
DeleteHey All !
ReplyDeleteWrote a long post on the computer, but Google decided not to recognize my account, so I lost it.
Short version, funky puz, liked it, didn't figure out the six letters combined thing, thought it was only a few, WISEACREST only as WISE, not WISE ACRE. OBAMACARENA only ad OBAMA, etc. Did see EPHERMAL EMERALDS, and thought that the outlier!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
@anonymous 10:10- Just a hunch but I’m guessing Nicolas Pepe was included because the name fit in the grid well so unless these better footballers you refer to are named Pepe than I can’t see your point.
ReplyDeletePeggy Lee said it best.
ReplyDeleteIs That All There Is?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LCRZZC-DH7M
Fun and helpful theme. Faster than usual in spite of all of the names. My spelling is getting better since I’ve been doing SB, so very few write-overs today.
ReplyDeleteSpoiler alert.
ReplyDeleteGilgamesh does not presage, anticipate, entertain or explore modern notions of sexual orientation.
In fact, none of the scores of thousands of cuneiform texts I’ve read do.
Samuel Noah Kramer
Philadelphia
@footballers-The problem with Pepe as a surname is that it's unusual. If you're not going to use "famous LePew" as a clue, maybe go with Jose, to his friends, or something like that.
ReplyDeleteArsenal could certainly use some shaking up, BTW.
As I was solving, this one teetered between "worthy brain-racker" and "wearing me out," but in the end, I have to hand it to the constructor for his creativity and skill. It seems to me to be quite a feat to assemble those four crossing six-packs, and melding GILGAMESH with a GAME SHOW and OBAMA with the MACARENA are zany enough to get smiles from me, not to mention the HAMMER + MERINGUE pie disaster.
ReplyDeleteThis puts me back to sleep 💤
ReplyDeleteZ ,
ReplyDeleteWords that pronounce r-e-y as it is in Star Wars... you couldn’t come up with any?
Don’t have to go to Iceland. Try your local farm for a greylag goose. I Iive near the water so I see osprey from time to time, my greyhounds don’t like them. Say there’s something fishy about them preying on lampreys. Besides,, what do they know? They couldn’t catch Reynard who was giving me grief. I could on, but why kick a greybeard when he’s down? Wouldn’t be treyf.
🤣
Delete@Gooner, It seems the objection to PEPE is that the clue describes him as a "standout player" and it appears he is not.
ReplyDeleteI’ll take a six pack to go on any Sunday in place of the usual bloated grids. More often Black Butte Porter rather than an IPA, but like puzzles a matter of taste. Thanks Mr Berlin glad you RANG iN with this one.
ReplyDeletegREY, ospREY, monterREY ...
ReplyDeleteIs "bicep" informal? Or just plain wrong? There is no such thing, of course. But even informal usage (read that, mistaken usage) would make it plural when thinking of the target of chin ups. Few people I know do one armed chin ups! So even people who think bicep is the singular of biceps would still say, while doing chin ups, "I'm working on my biceps."
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised no one pointed out the redundant entries of 108D CAME (clued as "Showed up") and 111A ARRIVE (clued as "Turn up"). The similarity was jarring to me. Otherwise I liked the puzzle. Happy last-day-of-Thanksgiving-weekend everyone!
ReplyDelete@Anon/Samuel Noah Kramer - Tell it to The Columbia Anthology of Gay Literature, among others that are easy enough to find with uncle Google. What seems clear enough is that the Victorian tendency in our culture to desexualize texts makes sussing out what is in the text and what is modern readers imputing modern mores is hard.
ReplyDelete@Cliff - Unless you’re studying for your MCATs BICEP is fine. Descriptive dictionaries accept it and you can even find this usage by medical doctors on the interwebs.
Re REY - I can’t believe I didn’t think of “grey” given the “grey/gray” conundrum. My only excuse is I spent my nanoseconds focused on words that begin with REY as in REYkjavik.
@Newboy - I’m more of a breakfast stout or Duck Rabbit Milk Stout or (when winter is in the “is it ever going to end” phase) <a href="https://www.newhollandbrew.com/beer/#dragons-milk/”>Dragon’s Milk</a> guy. I’m still more of an IPA guy most of the year.
In defense of the “standout” part of the clue, PÉPÉ’s transfer fee and subsequent performance does make him “stand out.” Yeah, I’m not convinced, either.
I don’t normally bother (too much counting) but the <b>PPP </b>today is indeed in the excessive range. 47/136, for 35%. Another reason I don’t normally count on Sundays is that I’m not sure the percentages have the same impact on a puzzle that is double the size of a daily puzzle (441 total squares as opposed to 225 in a 15x15 daily grid). Mathematically a percentage should represent roughly the same impact regardless of grid size, but 35% on a Sunday seems less densely packed than 35% during the week does. Perhaps the more mathematically fluent have an suggestion why this might be so.
Any puzzle with CHIVAS in it is great by me.
ReplyDeleteI really wanna see a SUPERMAN PERMANENT. Is that with that funny little comic book curl-over, in front? And with the all-blue tint? And that stays in place, even when flyin at super-sonic speeds, outdoors?
ReplyDelete… After six months without a proper haircut, the closest M&A has gotten to that is a BLOOPERMANENT.
fave sparklers: REMINISCE. VISAVIS. ISTHMUS. SIDEMAN + PLUSONE (yo, @RP). REBUSES.
staff weeject pick: ITE. It's a DES. [Prefix of desperation.] Better clue: {I ET TE??}.
Was a pretty eazy-E SunPuz solvequest at our house, once M&A caught on to what to splatz in at the front end of -EMERALDS. That was a fairly hefty SUPERSPLATZMENT nanosecond sink, I'd hafta grant. Definitely not EPHEMERAL-like (-DS).
ICEMELT + ICIER is a bit repetitive, as @kitshef wisely pointed out. M&A would sorta also like to chip IRISE + ARIZ into that REPEATMOSS category. har
Thanx for the eight six-packs, Mr. Berlin. [hic] [haec] [hoc]
Masked & Anonymo6Us
**gruntz**
Anon-11:46 Gooner referenced anon 10:10 “ There are far better footballers that could have been included.” Unless they’re named Pepe they couldn’t have been included. The point was apt.
ReplyDeleteEphermeralds, one of best of the bunch since the pronunciation and emphasis of the component syllables doesn't need to change, I loved it. Obamacarena too! I will probably think of this happily every time I go to the doctor's office, and I believe the waiting room experience could be substantially improved by a few Obamacerena flash mobs.
ReplyDelete@cliff You beat me to it. Bicep most def not a word. Doesn't matter if it's commonly used (even by doctors), there is no such thing.
ReplyDelete@JC66. If you ask me (well...you don't and you won't). CHIVAS is one of the most overrated, overpriced blended scotch whiskey's out there. The US did the same with the two other favorite "unblended" Scotch - Glenlivet and Glenfiddich. Good commercials, good PR and nothing else. To me, CHIVAS smells like bananas and is harsh as hell. I'd rather Cutty Sark it....... Come over for some Talisker.......
ReplyDelete@GILL 1000am So happy you're back! LOL - "a colonoscopy gone wrong." Yes, but are SIX-PACK abs the worst thing that could go wrong?
ReplyDeleteI might have gone a tad overboard, but I actually had to write everything out in order to understand the link between the title and the theme. How pathetic is that? (from there it's basically a matter of copy/paste)
Not exactly gripping commentary, but perhaps more illuminative of my thought process.
Agree with Rex and others that EPHEMERALDS is the standout themer for all the reasons stated, but mostly because it is the only one that can make any sense when said aloud...to my ear anyway. I think it's a syllabic stress thing. OBAMACARENA comes close, but not quite.
BTW, for some added fun: On the Wordplay blog, EB posted some additional posers. Here ya go!
Crazy antics in the upper level of the theater? MEZ _ _ _ _ _ _ SS
Burns musicians in a pit? SC _ _ _ _ _ _ TRA
Pro-woman clergyman? FE _ _ _ _ _ _ ER
Dog and cat lovers somewhere in South Africa? CA _ _ _ _ _ _ ERS
Remove a kind of pasta from deep inside the earth? EX _ _ _ _ _ _ LLI
“Thus, we should plant many more trees?” THE _ _ _ _ _ _ ST
There is also a link for the solutions should anyone want them.
For all those ICEMELT/ICIER haters, what about SUPERMAN/SIDEMAN?
ReplyDelete@GILL I
When I do come over, I will try some of your Talisker.
@pmdm 8:27 AM - Your analysis of the the theme sums it up for me. :)
ReplyDelete"Gilgamesh" audiobook.
"bicep"/biceps
Eric & Jeff comments at "XWord Info": here.
Amy "Rey"naldo comments at "Diary of a Crossword Fiend": here.
@Frantic Sloth 1:34 PM - Thx for EB's posers. :)
Peace Mino-wiijiindiwin Pace Frieden Salam Paix Mir Pax Vrede 平和 Woof 🕊e
@Frantic, thanks for posting the additional examples -- lots of fun, once I get the basic idea. In the actual puzzle, I never thought to think about the title, so never noticed that the overlap was always 6 letters. I liked it anyway, but like it more now. It also reminded me that I have been meaning to read GILGAMESH, but have yet to get around to it.
ReplyDeleteI'll take more of these any time!
P.s.-- if you really wanted a soccer player at 25A you could have changed the second P to an L and clued 19D as "Mea _____"
ReplyDeleteWhile still probably not crossword worthy, Pepe Reina is better than Nicolas Pepe. Anyone with a 20-year career most of which with stretches at clubs at least as big as Arsenal is noteworthy.
ReplyDeleteFound this somewhat boring though I enjoyed the theme. It was one of those puzzles I call a "fill-in" puzzle: I start in the SE (I do it with pen and paper)and just work my way up. I was able to "fill-in" the grid as I moved up without any difficulty so I missed the challenge of a tougher puzzle. I'm glad so many of you liked it.
ReplyDeleteI did like 'obamacarena' theme and, particularly, ,ephemeralds':
Speaking of ephemeralds, my wife Naomi's birthstone is emerald and all of her jewelry of any consequence has them. About 30 years ago, Naomi came home and said she had visited our local jeweler and asked them to set aside an emerald ring. I stopped by the next day ...I'm still not sure why she didn't just buy it that day...and looked at the ring which was fairly delicate with a tiny stone. I asked if I could have the stone replaced with a larger one and they said yes, the setting could handle it. They had a tray of emeralds sent up from the city and I selected a nice one-carat Columbian stone which they mounted; it became a combination engagement/wedding/anniversary ring.
A couple of years later, while she was at the local college rehearsing her dance company, someone came into the house...no break-in since we haven't locked the doors in 41 years...and stole the ring and a few other
items. Naomi was convinced that it was an inside job, that it was taken by the husband of one of her dancers who had been in our house before since so little of the house had been disturbed. We filed the insurance claim and police report, quite sure we'd never see the ring again.
The owners of the shop where we purchased the ring had retired and closed up and a new jeweler had opened up down the block from them. A month or so later, on a whim, Naomi stopped in and asked if they had any emeralds and they showed her a few uninteresting pieces. She asked if they had anything else.
They reached under the counter and pulled out a tray and, lo and behold, there was her ring. Naomi had no interest in retribution or the law; she just wanted her ring back and she bought it on the spot. And so, it wasn't so ephemerald after all.
@bocamp - from your link, a distinction that is more logical linguistically than anatomically made me chuckle. Language users being capricious? Who knew?
ReplyDeleteLooking at PEPE options there’s not a lot of better options. PEPÉ Le Pew and PEPÉ the internet meme both have issues that makes avoiding them probably wise. Then there’s a minor Muppets character. PEPE Reina is probably the best PEPE clue. I prefer the PELE/CULPA solution. PELÉ is most definitely the most crossworthy of the bunch.
Dragon’s Milk. Damn “smart” quotes.
@bocamp 205pm Have you added dogspeak to your languages of "peace"? Love it!
ReplyDelete@jberg 210pm You're welcome! (Same to you, @bocamp!)
To those of you in search of a PEPE clue, I submit
"Best pizza in the U.S. (New Haven CT)"
Just gonna drop that little stick o' dynamite and let someone else light it while I make my escape.
Or maybe nobody here has an opinion on pizza.
Hahahaha! It is to laugh!
@jberg That’s an excellent suggestion. Why couldn’t Will Shortz come up with that?
ReplyDeletePepe Auto Group ? Or is that unfair to non-locals ?
ReplyDeleteSort of got the overlapped theme early, but never bothered to count out the six letter overlap. Agree with Rex - so what? Why six letters - no idea and nothing to make me care. Which pretty much sums up my feelings about this puzzle - so what, who cares?
ReplyDeleteRe BICEP/s: thanks to @bocamp for handily linking to the Merriam-Webster entry.
ReplyDeleteMuch like the antipode/antipodes debate of 8/02/20 (this blog), what we have here is a case of back-formation. "Biceps" is usually spelled the same in the singular and plural (although "bicepses" is attested as well), so saying "my biceps are aching" would be acceptable standard English. For an English speaker who hears that enough times, it's instinctual to assume that the singular is formed by removing the affix -s that we typically use to form plurals. (No shit, Sherlock, did I hear somebody say?)
Anyway, nothing wrong with it, particularly; as I say it's a natural linguistic process, and maybe you could argue that "my right bicep hurts" also sounds more euphonious in English than "my right biceps hurts". I'm very glad that @cliff and @Big Bruiser point out that "bicep" is considered wrong in some circles -- I strongly suspect I'd never troubled to look it up and very likely I've used "bicep" myself, and now may make an adjustment depending on which crowd I find myself in -- but hey, if that's wrong according to original usage, then a whooooole lot else is also very wrong, things we say every day that pass unnoticed. I don't know how many readers here know the etymology of "nice", for instance, but it illustrates well this basic truism.
This will come as a shock to some of you but constructors play loosey goosey with the English (and other) languages. Bicep will always be with us. SOC* will always be with us. kwitcherbellyakin'.
ReplyDelete*Spellings of Convenience.
@matthew b -- Great story!
ReplyDelete@JC66 - as I said, normally dupes are OK by me, so SUPERMAN/SIDEMAN was OK, as were the clues for 70A 'RESIDENT: Suffix' and 80D 'Mustachioed Springfield RESIDENT'.
ReplyDeleteI join the others in thanking you for the extra themers, @Frantic. These are just as much fun to suss out as the ones that are in the puzzle. So the happiness of my morning is now extended into the late afternoon. Like @Jberg, I'll take more of these any time.
ReplyDeleteZ,
ReplyDeleteNo thank you. I literally wrote the book on Sumeria.
I understand that finding homosexuality in ancient texts, and normalizing it, is all the rage these days. I assure you, it will pass. There is nothing in those works to suggest homosexuality. Franky you’re out of your depth.
Not so long ago, you used to,post in Greek (trying to emulate Attic with varying degrees of success).
I am quite familiar with Fone’s work. Dover’s too. You’re a poseur with a web browser.
Nearly all their work is rubbish in service of an an agenda rather than truth.
Efforts desperate to accommodate deviancy. They are, of course, all the rage in certain circles.
They are, however, not normative.
S.N. Kramer
Philadelphia
ReplyDelete@kitshef
I agree with you.
I was just trying to point out that ICEMELT/ICIER shouldn't be considered a problem.
How about OBAMACARENA?
ReplyDeleteWell, it was.my fave.
Bored and not bored with puzz. Ended up ⬆️ liking it. 👍🏽🧩
And Rex’s criits are almost always 🎯
And I ❤️⬆️❤️ GILGAMESH-OW
ReplyDeleteIn case anyone was wondering S. N. Kramer died in 1990. https://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/27/obituaries/samuel-noah-kramer-93-dies-was-leading-authority-on-sumer.html
ReplyDeleteSometimes Rex should take a day off.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteLong time reader, first time commenter.
ReplyDeleteI found this puzzle to be light hearted and delightful. I really enjoyed myself. Sometimes...puzzles can be simply for pleasure without a special, hidden, often trite, meaning.
Consider that Canada's flag sports a maple leaf. Maple leaf -> maple tree -> maple syrup. They love the stuff!
Wrong day
DeleteFinished this and didn’t quite get the entirety of the « wacky « clues but enjoyed all the same. My copy of puzzle had a line running under the top row of clue numbers so I spent the whole time trying to see how those numbers, 1-16, fit in. Which of course they didn’t. Just a printing smudge. At least Rex wasn’t so negative this week.
ReplyDelete@rondo - The comments appear for approval as they are submitted, not by the day they are submitted for. As of my typing this there are no comments waiting to be approved.
ReplyDeleteNot much to say about this one. Two concepts Smooshed together; I have a feeling you could do this all day. It's fine, though, and dense, with no fewer than eight examples. He did a pretty good job of keeping the fill clean, too, except for letting the EKE virus get in. Man, that sucker is hard to kill!
ReplyDeleteI'd like to see someone do the OBAMACARENA. That would be fun to watch. Birdie.
BALL GAME
ReplyDeleteNATASHA UPDATED HER STRATEGY,
THATIS, to SLEEP with BILL:
she LIVENED up his PEPE VISAVIS
a FIRSTRATE blue PEPPILL.
--- RENEE MAE TYLER
Just want to say that this was enjoyable. The overlapping 6-letter thing together with the clues were a help in getting the themers. I particularly liked OBAMACARENA. Pretty tight puzzle overall with good fill throughout the big grid.
ReplyDeleteA fun Sunday, if you enjoy wordplay. I do.
ReplyDeleteDiana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
EKE!
Better concept than most Sundays. First one in - EPHEMERALDS - was the best IMHO. The others didn't pop as much, but still fun searching for the overlap. Bonus points for theme density.
ReplyDeleteNATASHA. Odessa, Ukraine. Yeah baby.
Proof here that Sunday puzzles don't have to suck.
It was a dull slog; not really clever at all, just gimmicky.
ReplyDelete