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Hoopster's mantra / SAT 2-27-21 / Renato's wife in Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera / Actress YouTube star Condor / Trope seen in rom-coms / Pioneer in 35 mm cameras / Material whose name is Scandinavian country in French / Ron who played Tarzan on old TV
Saturday, February 27, 2021
Constructor: Yacob Yonas
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium to Medium (again, the proper nouns—and there are a lot of them—are gonna cause experiences to vary wildly)
Word of the Day: MASER (55A: Atomic clock timekeeper) —
A maser (/ˈmeɪzər/, an acronym for microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) is a device that produces coherent electromagnetic waves through amplification by stimulated emission. The first maser was built by Charles H. Townes, James P. Gordon, and Herbert J. Zeiger at Columbia University in 1953. Townes, Nikolay Basov and Alexander Prokhorov were awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics for theoretical work leading to the maser. Masers are used as the timekeeping device in atomic clocks, and as extremely low-noise microwave amplifiers in radio telescopes and deep space spacecraft communication ground stations. (wikipedia)
• • •
It's funny, names: I do like seeing them, when I know them. It's like the puzzle is saying, "Hey, there, this one's for you. You belong." Which is important, at a fundamental level. And yet it's not the most *satisfying* level, for me, as a solver. Like, when I get handed something like LOVETT, I feel like I came by it cheap. I did not earn LOVETT or work LOVETT out. LOVETT's just there, tipping his hat at me, letting me past some figurative rope or gate to get further into the puzzle. It's a different level of pleasure. A candy level. I *do* like it. But it's somehow not as satisfying as the answer I have to work for, even if that "work" is just correctly making sense of the cluing. On the flip side, when I work out something like "MR. KITE," I'm left with ... not much of a feeling at all. I don't mean to pick on that answer, which is fine, and which I definitely *should* have known (I know so much of the Beatles catalogue so well, and yet have never listened to Sgt. Pepper (!?)). I'm just trying to think through the ways that names are different from other kinds of answers, at the satisfaction/dissatisfaction level. One last thing that should be said about today's names (HAILE TRACI AMELIA LOVETT HAMM LANA MRKITE ISIDORA SANGER DANIEL ELY ARON): this is a really beautifully diverse slate. I am into the cultural breadth on display here. It's true that names can be exclusionary, but if you offer a genuine variety, then at least they aren't exclusionary along one (racial / generational / gender) line. Anyway, I hope you navigated them successfully, because the puzzle really was bright and delightful overall.
"BALL IS LIFE!" is quite the opener! (1A: Hoopster's mantra). Hopefully its vibrancy will be pleasing even to people who have never heard it before. I needed crosses to get it, but when I did, I perked right up. Very different energy than the answer I opened with (TEA SERVICE). Quite a bracing experience to believe you're at a rather prim tea party only to have a bunch of ballplayers crash the party and start dribbling, dunking, and raining threes down upon you. And the fresh phrases kept coming: FACEPALM, MEET-CUTE, ASCII ART. The one thing I will say about the glut of names today is that they are from alllllll over the cultural / generational spectrum. There's something for everyone to love / trip on! The only time the names got truly dense was in the SW, where ELY and ARON (old) and LANA (new) crossed MET GALA. The lucky thing about this name pile-up is the names *do* come from different worlds. Old pros are gonna pick up ELY and (maybe?) ARON with little sweat, but trip on LANA, but then vice versa for younger solvers, perhaps. MET GALA seems like a generally known thing, only, if you are like me, and only half paying attention, you went and wrote in MET BALL and got yourself in a little trouble. BALL and GALA have that "AL" core in common, so the wrongness of BALL ("confirmed" by ACAI) was not immediately apparent. A word about LANA Condor. She is indeed a YouTube star, but she's also the main star in a very popular Netflix film series ("To All the Boys I've Loved Before"). She's been in a Marvel movie, she did voicework on "Bojack Horseman" ... what I'm saying is, if you're introducing a person to grid life (GRID IS LIFE!) then it would be cool for the clue to include something specific about that person's accomplishments, so that even if a solver hasn't heard of the person, they have some reason to care. "YouTube star," with no specifics, is not a reason to care.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. I sorta like the colloquial quality of the clue at 47D: Like, now (AT ONCE), but that clue could just as easily have been, like, [Now]. The "Like" part adds only confusion. I thought I was supposed to come up with a modern word for "Like." Like, we used to say "Like," but "now" we say ... what? What do we say?! ... quite the misdirection hole.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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144 comments:
Ah, what a lovely combination of gimmes and no-knows, and in between, a luscious group of ya-gotta-figure-me-outs.
Exceedingly junk-lite despite the ample white, with but 29 black squares. Plus, TATA under DADA, and grid pairs TAPAS with BITE ME, and LIT with MOONBEAM. Not to mention a couple of echos of yesterday’s puzzle – FLICKED to go with yesterday’s TAW, and the same type clue for RIPE [What comes before old age?] as for yesterday’s AGO [Something found after many years?]
A most enjoyable solve, and I LOVETT when that happens – much gratitude for this, Yacob!
@Rex, DO listen to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It is a journey worth taking.
My experience was much the same as Rex’s but I was hoping for a classic Rex rant against the cutesifying of drone warfare through the pairing of 27D and its callback at 50D, which undid much of the puzzles charm for me.
I agree with the praises of @Rex and @Lewis. The only stinker was 12D.
That was a lot of fun! I had to work it hard from all directions but navigated through it all somehow. Very confidently put “beehive” at 27 down, so sure that the cluing was a misdirect. Took the southwest wind out of my sails for a bit.
DNF - MASER/RESENT. Had maler/relent. Ugh.
Rex makes a good point in highlighting the diversity of the proper names, and I love his description of that totally unsatisfying feeling I get when, with enough crosses, I'm able to figure out the name of a person I've never heard of. I had the feeling repeatedly this morning and it pretty much spoiled my enjoyment. The only answer that stood between my hating the puzzle and merely disliking it was Mia HAMM, who is my favorite athlete of all time -- across all genders, nationalities, and all sports -- rivaled only by current USWNT star Alex Morgan (for all the same reasons).
Jesus Rex. Now a whole day of us old people tsk tsking about you never having listened to Sgt. Pepper. Why? Why? Couldn’t you have kept that little musical blind spot secret?
“Only” 31%. When my first two answers were Mia HAMM/HAILE Selassie I got a bad feeling. Rex is correct about the PPP diversity, but there are enough potential naticks in the NE and SW that I predict complaints.
“BALL don’t lie” isn’t really a mantra, but Sheed is still one of my top ten favorite Pistons ever. The truth about his technical fouls is a huge embarrassment to NBA officiating.
If you’re like me you were wondering what “didy” (which my iPad just tried to “fix) has to do with DADAism. Nope, it’s diapers or a material (the kind used in diapers). Going with obscurity over a POC art movement? That’s a coin flip. I just wonder who knew “didy” enough to use it to clue the paternal DADAS. My guess is we have a clue database to blame. Between this clue and the ALEC clue I have to wonder if keeping the PPP below 33% was a decision. Baldwin or Guinness combined with Art would have pushed the puzzle over the T-TOP.
After we finish tsking about MR. KITE can someone, anyone, discuss the m.p.g. rating of a SOLAR CAR.
I liked this less than Rex for exactly the reason he said. Knowing or figuring out names just isn’t that interesting to me and the names were such a crux that the nicer elements were lost on me. Objectively this is a pretty good puzzle. It just didn’t play that way for me.
Excellent puzzle! It checked all the boxes -- crunch, sparkle, novelty.
I know basketball well but I've never heard BALLISLIFE. I understand that it's something young hoopers say.
"Like, now" at 47D needs an exclamation mark.
We saw a wonderful romcom last night. Music and Lyrics from 2007. Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore meet cute. She comes to his apartment to water his plants, substituting for his regular plant waterer. Brilliant dialogue throughout the movie.
Many people consider East of Eden to be a great novel but not me. What I like best about Steinbeck is his poetic writing. There isn't much of it in East of Eden.
APIAN, APIAc, APIAl got me. I was surviving the onslaught of names until I missed ARON.
All of your former rants about using names of people in the puzzle who you don't like or agree with and you're okay with Margaret Sanger??!!
I'm not a fan of proper nouns in crosswords, and I really wanted to hate this one, but somehow I couldn't. And I'll be darned if I didn't find myself grudgingly liking it by the time I was done.
Let's be clear: I knew a few of the names once I had some crosses to work with (SANGER, HAMM, LOVETT, LEICA), and I might have gotten the two names that look like they were reclued, depending on how the originals were (ELS, ALEC), but I was completely in the dark about AMELIA, ISIDORA, TRACI, LANA, ARON, DANIEL, and whatever MR KITE is (yes, I'm old enough to know who the Beatles are, but no, I don't like them). But somehow the crosses salvaged them. Not because they were "gettable" but because they were good.
SOLAR CAR and TOY PIANO turned the SW from slog to nice. ISIDORA crossed with TRACI could have been fatal, but crossing at the R made it possible. And I had no problem with correcting my initial guess of ISODORA when TEA SERVICE fell into place.
Lots of that kind of stuff turned this one into a pretty enjoyable puzzle for me. I see lots of comments on this site about technical mastery for layout and other things I would never notice; how about some love for the technical skill to change my opinion of what a proper noun-heavy puzzle can be.
Thank you, @Yacob, a fine Sat. puz; lots of crunchiness and pizzazz.
Easy solve. Thursdayish time.
Could only come up with "easy a" in the NW; worked down to the SW and counter-clockwise back to the NW. No real hitches along the way. Only a slight pause at the "Milanos" / "Maser" cross; wasn't 100% sure on that one, not knowing the cookie.
Loved hoops, but baseball will always be my game of life.
Schlafe Mein Prinzchen
Schlafe, mein Prinzchen, schlaf ein,
Schäfchen ruhn und Vögelein,
Garten und Wiese verstummt,
auch nicht ein Bienchen mehr summt,
Luna mit silbernem Schein
gucket zum Fenster herein,
schlafe bei silbernem Schein,
schlafe, mein Prinzchen, schlaf ein,
schlaf ein, schlaf ein!
Sleep, my little prince, sleep,
The sheep and the birdies rest,
The garden and the meadow are quiet,
Not even a little bee buzzes anymore.
Luna, with a silverly glow
Looks in through the window,
Sleep by the silvery glow,
Sleep, my little prince, sleep,
Sleep, sleep!
___
yd pg -1
Peace ~ Empathy ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Crushed it. 8 minutes? That's like... a Wednesday for me. Maybe a Thursday.
BALLISLIFE went in without any crosses, and I was off to the races.
Name heavy indeed, and several new to me, but still went through this one pretty fast. The real unknown was ASCIIART, which is apparently a thing, but looks more like a low score Scrabble rack. A "softball" course used to be a "gut", don't know when that changed. And as far as an ignorance of "Sgt. Pepper", I expect to read next that OFL has never tried peanut butter.
ARON was unknown to me as clued, but since I'm co-teaching a Presley course right now, I know that it's both his middle name and the name of his twin brother who was stillborn. Wait, "twin", as in "East of Eden"? Hmmm....
MASER was new, and ASTIR I can live without, but we got a SOLARCAR to go with yesterday's GREENCAR. Speaking of GREEN, TOYPIANO would be GREEN paint, but the Schroeder clue cancels that.
Thanks for all the fun, oh YY's one. Like all the snappy long answers.
Bright and fresh. Today I learned ASCII ART.
And here it is. I'm going to have to address BITEME vs. Buzz off! (How high brow can you get?)
No. Just no.
Buzz off = get lost, shoo, scram, drag your ass, etc.
BITEME comes from the land of F-You and all its varietals. I'd hardly use one in lieu of the other, but I would like to use both for this clue/answer.
Today was wavelength a-go-go for me. 2 minutes faster than yesterday's solve. Nobody cares, but it's unusual (and therefore interesting) for me and so I'm gonna drag you all down with me.
Also liked the pairing of "didy" and DADAS. DADA did Deedee's didy of doodoo today-day. Rolls trippingly off the tongue, no?
Little nits aside, I enjoyed this one. Could be because I felt so brilliant "sailing through" it, but by now I know that's only fool's gold. Alas.
🧠🧠
🎉🎉🎉.5
I enjoyed this and solved it speedily even though there was a lot I didn't know: TRACI, MASER, LANA (although haven't we had her in a previous puzzle?), ARON, AMELIA, ISIDORA (strange spelling of that name), MILANOS (they're called "Monacos" in Canada but I wouldn't have known the name anyway), ASCII ART (it's been used by commenters on this very blog but I didn't know what you call it), and DANIEL -- to cite only a few. I learned BALL IS LIFE, which I like and find amusing. I didn't know that ICES can be a synonym for "clinches" in the sense of "secures."
I have fond memories around both LEICA, which I used professionally for many years, and TEA SERVICE, a silver one of which was my mother's pride and joy and stood majestically on display in her dining room. It would, of course, slowly tarnish over time and it was my job to bring it back to shining perfection, a job I found tedious and took pride in in equal measure.
**IRRELEVANT PERSONAL NOTE ALERT**
Yesterday I had the stunning achievement of becoming a grandmother without ever having been a mother. My husband's son and wife are the glowing parents of baby Quinn (a girl) who, naturally, is as cute as a button. The only downside is that they live far away so we won't get to meet young Quinn in person for quite some time, but it will be all the sweeter when we do. There's no need to congratulate me -- it's not my accomplishment at all -- but somehow I just wanted you to know.
Today's passage comes from the writings of N. Scott Momaday, born Feb. 27, 1934.
“The night the old man Dragonfly came to my grandfather’s house the moon was full. It rose like a great red planet above the black trees on the crooked
creek. Then there came a flood of pewter light on the plain, and I could see the light ebb toward me like water, and I thought of rivers I had never seen, rising like ribbons of rain. And in the morning Dragonfly came from the house, his hair in braids and his face painted. He stood on a little mound of earth and faced east. Then he raised his arms and began to pray. His voice seemed to reach beyond itself, a long way on the land, and he prayed the sun up. The grasses glistened with dew, and a bird sang from the dawn. This happened a long time ago. I was not there. My father was there when he was a boy. He told me of it. And I was there.”
(From Earth Keeper: Reflections on the American Land)
I wanted it to be BALLER LIFE. Does anybody actually say "Ball is life!" in real life? "Wanna shoot some hoops?" "You bet! Ball is life!"
I'm not sure how I feel about this. I was glad to get through it in a decent time, in spite of some trouble, but it felt like a lot of names, some not familiar, e.g., AMELIA, ISADORA, LANA, TRACI.
'It's like the puzzle is saying, "Hey, there, this one's for you. You belong." ' -- oh, barf. "Which is important, at a fundamental level." Barf again. I'm sure the feeling of belonging to an exclusive club is important to some people, but the inevitable corollary that "you don't belong" will apply to other people is not such a happy thought.
Back to the puzzle, I regret to say that I also didn't know MR. KITE. Yes, I've listened to that album for sure, and now that I play it I definitely recognize the tune, but I'm sorry to say I've never examined the lyrics of that particular song. I should probably try to rectify that soon.
(Aside: there are some fascinating inclusions of personages on the cover of that album, e.g., Carl Jung, and -- probably obscure to most people -- Sri Yukteswar who was the guru of Yogananda who wrote Autobiography of a Yogi, which fascinated me so much when I was a teenager. Sri Yukteswar is the one at the very upper left corner. Such a dignified leonine face.)
ASCII ART: like. (I put "emoticon" in first, but soon saw that collided with HAMM.)
"Didy changers": dislike. "Didy". I'm happy to say that I've never heard that before in my life, despite having changed my fair share. I'm unhappy to say I know it now.
Okay, let that be all for now, except to say: welcome back, @Frantic Sloth! I was starting to get a little worried not hearing from you, and was missing the daily near spit-takes. And in case she missed it yesterday, welcome back @Gill I.! Glad to hear everything went well.
The only names I knew off the bat were LOVETT and HAILE. Most of the others were fine because you can work them out from the crosses: AMELIA, ISIDORA, DANIEL, TRACI, LANA.
And Rex, I know this is a generational thing, but really, YouTube is just a medium, and a highly competitive one at that. It takes a lot of hard work, talent, and a bit of luck to make it in there. Being a YouTube star is indeed a reason to care.
Quite possibly my fastest ever Saturday time at 17:13, which is probably glacial to many of you but is 12 minutes faster than my average.
Yesterday (not Sgt. Peppers): GREENCAR INONEDAY.
Today(not such an easy game to play): SOLARCAR INONEDAY.
And because of Will's repeating word syndrome I was ready to see GREENCAR again.
Solved from the bottom up mostly. Did not know METGALA ASCII (what kind of Latin plural was my first thought) AMELIA TRACI (but assumed the clue was suggestive so started out with TerrI) LANA MASER (had lASER until seeing DATAMINE over DATAlINE). They all appeared eventually.
DADAS over TATA, amusing. Throw in TAPAS too.
LEICA ELY MRKITE ISIDORA all took various decades of memory dust removal.
My first mantra for 1A was: BbaLl is all.
I use to have a complete Ethiopian robe with gold thread that was originally a gift from HAILE Selassie himself. Even I looked handsome in that. Great on the dance floor.
Sgt. Pepper's was suppose to be The Beatles greatest record. A milestone masterpiece. And maybe it was, but it does seem to be collection of lesser known songs to the younger folks. But maybe that is just based on a very small sample of people I know.
A lovely Saturday puzzle that played easy until I correctly filled in ASCIIART and then stared at it forever, went to sleep, and stared at it again this morning. I’m relieved I don’t ever have to say it out loud.
"And now a MASSAGE from the SUEDE-ish Prime Minister" -- this was a segue line between skits on the Monty Python TV series.
SOLAR CAR crossing MOONBEAM -- I wonder if it's possible to store lunavoltaic energy and put it to practical use. You could feel mysteriously out of sorts and dance about in the woods all month long.
I don’t think anyone should be banned from the puzzle but if you’re going to go there then racist eugenicist Margaret Sanger would be a good place to start.
Didn't seem right, but I stuck with MET GAME. Mana and Eron looked OK.
Semi-malapop at 27D I wanted ‘apiary’ for ‘Home for a drone’, but it didn’t fit. Then I got to use APIAN at 50D.
I guess that was OK for a Wednesday. Why it ran on a Saturday I can’t imagine.
1A/1D very rough. One a phrase that I’ve heard, but certainly don’t think of it as a mantra. The other I’ve heard, but certainly don’t think of it as meaning ‘buzz off’. Although buzz off fits nicely with my APIAN entries.
Love milanos. Just recently learned that Pepperidge Farm is owned by Campbell’s, which seems a bit random.
Loved the younger feel of this grid and came out with a record time. Got Ball is life and tea service right away. My one gripe is with 21A. I wanted to write 'flit', but decided that couldn't be right, since I associated the word with quick flight exhibited by hummingbirds and the like.
If this puzzle had a title it would be EASYA. I flew through it in only a couple of minutes over Wednesday time. It was five minutes less than yesterday's solve. This isn't what I expect from a Saturday
My only write overs were changing ISADORA to ISIDORA (strange looking spelling) and LASER to MASER. I had forgotten there was such a thing as a MASER but associating dig with MINE was about as tricky as this puzzle got.
BALLISLIFE sounds like it came from the same ESL course that Boris of Rocky and Bullwinkle took. Lesson 1: BALLISLIFE, Lesson 2: KEELSQUIRREL.
There was an odd coincidence between a couple of entries from yesterday and today but what really stood out about today's solve was the early week level of its resistance.
One more little coincidence with yesterday's puzzle, wasn't governor MOONBEAM from CALI?
Hi there - You must listen to Sgt. Pepper - it's brilliant and of course a classic.
All the best from Santa Fe!
Gurufateh
Mr Kite was a gimme for fans of that album, which is apparently everyone on earth who isn’t Rex.
True story: a friend in Houston had moved to a new neighborhood and was looking for a barber. He found one nearby and was on his way in, when Lyle Lovett (in the ‘I look like I just woke up with a hangover’ part of his career) walked out.
He did an about face and found another barber shop.
Diverse or not - too many nouns and trivia in this one. The solve was fairly smooth because I knew most of them but it felt overwhelmingly like Jeopardy. I liked the long corner stacks - BALL IS LIFE and FINE DINING are top notch as is ASCII ART. Love BITE ME but don't think is matches well with Buzz off. Liked the dual play with drones and MOON BEAM is cool. I typically dislike anything Beatles related but somehow knew MR KITE.
Straightforward puzzle but not my kind of Saturday.
I know so much of the Beatles catalogue so well, and yet have never listened to Sgt. Pepper (!?)
Wow Rex that's an impressive statement on so many different levels.
- - - - -
This puzzle was so easy I eventually gave it to the cat to finish. He solved it in under two hours, which is pretty good for a cat.
- - - - -
More JOHN X news:
- Yesterday I bought a new 11 gallon kitchen trash can
- Today I am changing an oxygen sensor on the JOHNXMOBILE
- Lately I've really developed a taste for fresh cut pineapple
Gee. I wonder how Rex feels about PPP. If only he dedicated - oh, I don't know - about half of his write-up to it. 🤣
I kid OFL. Everything he said about proper names was spot on. We've bemoaned the practice many times here, but it was gratifying to see it chews his toes, too.
I also had a similar experience with the "Like, now" (ATONCE) clue and wonder if its weird misdirect annoyed anyone else. Maybe it needed an exclamation point to help us remedials along...? (Hi, @mathgent!) My reaction upon seeing the answer was a resounding, shruggish "oh."
@Z "After we finish tsking about MR. KITE can someone, anyone, discuss the m.p.g. rating of a SOLAR CAR." 🤣🤣
@Barbara S. 818am Too bad about your natural aversion to the spotlight because I'm gonna say it: Congratulations! You can't "hide the pride", missy! And so you shouldn't. 😘
@TTrimble 826am Thank you, my friend. For the record, no need to ever worry about me - I'm hard to kill. "La Cucaracha" is my theme song. 😉
ASCIIART and Grawlix walk into a bar, slap the Sloth around and say "remember us or else" and so she did. Sometimes it's the only way.
@Birchbark 845am "You could feel mysteriously out of sorts and dance about in the woods all month long." However did you know? What are you, some kind of peeping tree?
I see a couple of comments, including Rex, about the 47D clue. In the print version (you know, the way god intended) the clue is
Like, now
I guess the italicization is supposed to replace the quotation marks or other indicators, but seems like a giant BITE ME to e-solvers.
@Hartley70 - That is ASCII ART, ASCII being the code that turns binary computer code into letters and and symbols. I always hear it pronounced “As Key.” ASCII ART is just using keyboard symbols to make images. Emoticons are ASCII ART, emojis are not.
@Guilherme Gama - You Tube stars are consigned to nichedom by algorithm. By giving us what we want YouTube prevents any sort of cross-over into broader cultural awareness. A huge YouTube star is barely a D-Lister outside their niche. Just to take one obvious example, GoT’s record viewership was less than 20 million, yet has far more cultural saturation than any YouTube star.
@David Eisner - X IS LIFE is a fairly common self-deprecating “mantra.” Just pick your favorite mildly obsessive hobby and somebody has said the phrase. For me it is “Disc IS LIFE” which I probably first heard 20 years ago.
It really irks me to DNF on a easy Saturday. I had MAlER/RElENT.
I must be old. I never heard anyone say Let's get LIT! With that in mind I promptly typed in STOnED at 35a.
This!!! No amount of diverse people included makes up for this.
I’m with you
I hate to rain on people’s “Should have run on a Wednesday” Parade* but High PPP always lead to Wheelhouse/Outhouse type comments.
@Frantic Sloth - gratifying to see it chews his toes, too. Or, “Hey! That’s my schtick!” He did say it well and who doesn’t like candy.
*Such an obvious lie
Hey All !
Two letter/four word DNF. No clue on the I of LEICA/ASCIIART. Thought I knew camera names. Not. ASCII, know the word courtesy of crosswords, but didn't know that it was symbol thingies on your keyboard. Other one was the S of MASER/RESENT. Had a C for RECENT, har. I Begrudge that answer. ☺️
But still, a nice puz. Fairly easy except for those two Naticks (well, not true Naticks, as only LEICA is s proper noun.) Just s couple of writeovers, get out/off-BITEME, trIppED-cLICKED-FLICKED, seE-EYE. Have to confess on a Goog for HAILE. I thought that the clue was asking for a synonym for what I thought was a word in Ethiopian, not the name of a person! So Googed and saw HAILE. Good thing, cause ICES was not coming into the ole brain. Aw well, such is s SatPuz.
Rex seemed to like it. "He likes it! Hey Mikey!" (Original commercial with a boy instead of the new one with a girl.)
Liked the diagonal swath of blocks cutting through the center. I'm an AUG baby, peridot my stone! If anyone cares! 😆
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Although I got my start in the SE with FIB, that's also where I met my Waterloo, with lASER/DATA lINE. Of course I've heard of DATA MINE and MASER rings a bell, like, now, but DNF there today.
I had a laugh at myself with the Schroeder clue/answer. PIANIST didn't fit, PRODIGY didn't fit. When I had _OY_____ in place, I wondered, "BOY, what?" Or could he have loved Lucy secretly and just played a cOY lover? TOY PIANO, talk about a FACE PALM moment!
SUEDE for Sweden, interesting. I was once trying to explain to some Italian ladies (in English) that I had been to Sweden. They kept mistaking me for saying Switzerland. I never did figure out what the Italians call Sweden. Ah, Google translate says Svezia as opposed to Svizzero for Switzerland.
For some reason, I always hear "MR. Kyde" in the Beatles song rather than Mr. Kite, even though they have it rhyme with "tonight" so Kite should be obvious. That didn't cause any grid problems but it made me wonder why I mishear it all the time. On the other hand, they later try to make "Of course, Henry the horse dances the waltz" sound good so can you blame me for being confused?
I reuse my printer paper. Last night after printing out today's puzzle, I noticed I had an unsolved NYTimes puzzle on the back side of my sheet. This morning, I started in with 1A being a four-letter word clued "Hell ____ no fury..." crossed by "___ and haw". I said, "What, on a Saturday???" and sure enough, I had picked up the Wednesday, November 30th side. Har.
Yacob Yonas, nice Saturday.
@Jim 9:07 AM
Thanks for that laugh (about your friend's about-face)! "in the ‘I look like I just woke up with a hangover’ part of his career" -- I'm still trying to work out where that begins and ends.
An odd-looking man, he: his mouth seems always set on a slant. All that said, the fella has talent. This is a nice song I just now recalled: North Dakota.
I never notice grid design...until one day I do. I noticed today's because I couldn't enter this puzzle until all the way down at TOY PIANO (thank you, "Peanuts"!) and then, once I was in, I couldn't get back up to the top. It seemed like there was only one letter connecting the bottom to the top. The grid was SO segmented!
The top was impossible for me because I've never heard of BALL IS LIFE (1A). Worse, I wanted either GET OUT or GO AWAY for 1D (Who on earth says BITE ME to mean "buzz off"? Who on earth says it to mean anything at all?) So my 1A began with a "G", and the only thing I could think of that fit was GIVE IT TO ME. As in GIVE ME THE BALL. I didn't write it in because all the crosses were terrible.
I'm a HEAD SLAP sort of person when I'm feeling dumb, not a FACE PLANT person. I'm not even sure what a FACE PLANT looks like. Nor did I know either AMELIA or ISADORA. So the top looked undoable and I almost cheated. But I managed to solve it clean, because I knew LOVETT and TEA SERVICE came in as a bonus.
EASY A is so well-clued that I had ???YA and stared at it blankly for, like, forever.
And don't even get me started on ASCII ART, whatever that is. Or MR KITE.
A real toughie that left me ASEA much of the time, with more than a few proper name GRIPEs and feeling like I was existing in an entirely different SOLAR system from Yacob. But I liked the challenge and I do feel proud that I finished without cheating.
Duh, I meant FACE PALM! (Cue HEAD SLAP.)
I ALMOST had a record Saturday time but had ALEA (yes, I know it’s alee) for 16A and couldn’t figure out what ALII ART was!
Rex saying that he listens to the extensive Beatles catalog and hasn’t heard Sgt. Peppers is like saying you love 1980s basketball and don’t know who Michael Jordan is.
I don’t get ELS as a couple of dollars?
Would’ve finished in record Saturday time for me, but for the MASER/LASER mistake. DATALINE looks more than plausible, if you don’t revisit the clue. Had to hunt for the wrong answer for a while.
Like, now, with the 'now' italicized or not, seems to me a perfectly good clue. Is there complaint? I mean you could take it to mean current or faddish or a meta of some kind. Ted is hurt. We should get him to the hospital. When? Like, now.
SUEDE. The clue was excellent. Made my brain dizzy. Fell right in with the S and the E crosses. From no idea to oh yeah it must be. Gotta love that stuff.
Oops - I meant y to write 1990s
@ROO 938am
Throw FLIppED in there too.
The biggest throwaway line today is @albatross shell's 8:39 casual comment that he received an gorgeous, gold-threaded robe as a gift from HAILE Selassie!!! So I want to his blog profile to see exactly who he is to have been given such a gift by such an important figure and there's nothing on the profile! How disappointing! Who are you, @albatross shell? Spill!
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I learn from @Z (9:23)that [X] IS LIFE is a self-deprecating phrase for someone who takes a hobby or sport too seriously. Here's the way I've heard it about tennis:
Someone comes up to you and says sternly: "You have to understand, Nancy, that tennis is NOT a matter of life and death. It's much, MUCH more important than that!!!"
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@Barbara S -- Re polishing silver, a truly odious task that I've never done: You must develop the "mantra" that I've relied on ever since I took two drop-dead gorgeous silver serving utensils with me after my mother passed away. My brother and I sold most of the silver, but I had no decent looking serving utensils so I took those. And thus I came up with the mantra: TARNISHED IS BEAUTIFUL. Which it truly is, when you think about it. That lovely greenish-goldish patina. What's not to like? It looks something out of a museum, doesn't it?
I've used it to serve certain meals to certain friends and no one has ever said a word. Of course I have extremely tactful friends. I've sometimes wondered what they thought, but I've never asked them :)
Well...I'm glad you enjoy proper names, señor @Rex....but for all that is a holy guacamole, you'd think about 13 of them is more than enough..
I'm stealing @Frantic's cucaracha and add "pero le falta"....las patitas etc etc.
I've mentioned before that I always start in the attic. I have to. The only thing that didn't need cleaning was LOVETT. One down, 12 to go. Oh.....HAMM....Like @Lobster, Mia is also one of my all time favorite athletes. Add a little Serena Williams as well. OK so 2 down and about 10 more to go.....
I was all over the place with this one. Some was easy...looking at you MOON BEAM...some was hard...looking at you BALL IS LIFE. Who says that? Lucille?
Then I get to DADAS. Yes, I actually got to DADAS and let out the groan de la groan. Can Yacob really be referring to British diapers? Could he? He could, and he did. Even my husband, who laughs at elephant and dad jokes, did that little high brow TEA SERVICE look and said "No one bloody hell calls them didy." So now you have it.
I use to know all the lyrics to LAS Mananitas. I haven't sung it in a while but I remember
Que linda esta la mañana
En que vengo a saludarte
Venimos todos con gusto
Y placer a felicitarte.
And speaking of that....@Barbara S.....Being a grandmother is probably my single most beloved role right now. I wouldn't trade it for nada. It's hard to describe because grandkids are so darn special. My little Hadley Rose is 2 and we get to see her once a week. I don't know what I'd do without listening to her little laughter, squeals of delight and a smile that lights up the MET GALA. When I was staying with my daughter and son-in-law recuperating from my "little procedure". she'd come into the bedroom and rub my head and say "you 'K' Nonie?" She was worried I wouldn't get up and make her pan cakes. She got them....she get's whatever she wants. You'll see, @Barbara S.
Like my favorite breakfast order: over easy, or rather easy; over. For me, this one needed the equivalent of some hash browns and crispy bacon to make my eyes light up.
@Barbara S 8:18: OK, no congratulations- but I wish you lots of joy! :-) (I am not very good at ASCIIART) I, too, am a grandmother without having been a mother. All three of my sisters died before their grandchildren were born so I am now matriarch and have 5 grands ranging in age from 2 to 9. They bring me great joy, though of course I can’t travel to see them now. :-(.
@Nancy 1006 am
You meant ISIDORA too since you got tea service.
@AJ 1034am
2 els in dollars. A meta.
There are a couple of “l”s in “dollars”
You know when you post something and you come back later to see whether anyone has noticed your post (don't lie) and you go to the top of the page and search for your name?
A banner day for me and it will only get better!
Do I have to tell you that Amelia was a gimme? Even more fun is the fact that her lover is Riccardo. (my husband of 38 years: Richard)
But enough about me.
Nice puzzle, had fun with it. Knew all the proper names, am familiar with George Sand, Sgt. Pepper, opera, Get Out, and could infer any other names. You know the way puzzles work, right?
As for one across, the Knicks are fun again! I just wish Thibodeau would wear his friggin mask over his nose.
Cheers.
@Z - Don't you mean it's pronounced "ass key"? While I've got your attention, I still quote Sheed whenever someone misses a free throw on a foul I think is unjustified. I think I can guess, but what is the "truth" you refer to about his techs?
@Joe from yesterday, you are correct. I was looking for a key with no sharps and flats and should have been up a whole step. Haste makes waste...
@Amelia - yes to the Knicks! Inre the masks, I always do a facepalm when they wear their mask dutifully and correctly except to pull it down to yell at a player, or more likely the ref. Why bother?
I have a sweatshirt that says “Music is life, the rest is just details.” I am not in the BALL club. I was "on the basketball team" in junior high but didn't own a ball and never really learned to dribble and walk at the same time. They let me play at the end of one game when we were safely ahead.
So I skipped around the puzzle and found some toeholds. LOVETT, TTOP, FINE DINING among the first. Really enjoyed working it all out……until I “finished” and something wasn’t right. Eventually gave up looking - the problem was aCES for “clinches.” Now I know how to spell HAILE. Pretty much spoiled the fun, though looking across the TEA SERVICE at MR. KITE in the MOONBEAM is making me feel better again.
Great clue for TEA SERVICE. Had to back my way into that and was trying to make it about tennis. When the truth finally dawned on me I had to explain my LOL reaction to my husband!
ELS, on the other hand, can BITE ME.
@Frantic, glad you’re back!
@Z, re the spelling correction, at the time I hadn’t made note of who had used that “e” but I went back to look. You weren’t the first or last. Funny thing is, someone who had spelled it correctly until your post seemingly bent to your will and used it thereafter.
Found out a few days ago that teachers in my state are eligible for a COVID vaccine, so I made an appointment for today, 2 hours away. Weather’s looking like I might be able to put the TOP down for the trip.
For basketball mantra wanted something like “ nothing but net”. BB is life? Nah. How do you measure mpg in a car that runs on sunlight? Gallons of what?
Didn't know BALLISLIFE, but, hey -- the young dude says it's his "life motto", so I'm plenty ok with him usin it in his xword. Unimaginative M&A had Y'ALL IS LOST there, for a first stab. Then CALLISLATE, etc.
fave name of what seemed like an unendin bombardment: MRKITE.
Was tryin to get traction in the NW, kept lookin for somethin friendly that would help, and kept runnin into INES, LOVETT, ISIDORA, TRACI, AMELIA, MRKITE. Fortunately, got LOVETT figured out, eventually. But the oh, the nanoseconds … the nanoseconds.
some fave sparklers: FACEPALM (wanted HEADSLAP first). INONEPIECE. FLICKED.
staff weeject pick: AUG. Always excitin to see the month clues, to see what wonky things might get celebrated thereon. AUG sports a National Underwear Day, f'rinstance. And, it is of course Goat Cheese Month. Today the pus went with a birthstone, which was also somewhat informative, I reckon.
Thanx for the feisty fun, Mr. Yonas.
Masked & AnonymoUUs
runts is life:
**gruntz**
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band: my fave Beatles' album.
"Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!"
For the benefit of Mr. Kite
There will be a show tonight on trampoline
The Hendersons will all be there
Late of Pablo Fanques Fair, what a scene
Over men and horses, hoops and garters
Lastly through a hogshead of real fire
In this way Mr. K. will challenge the world
Reacting To My Music Video ~ "Lana" Condor
@albatross shell 7:36 PM ~ last eve.
Reread your post and totally agree! You obviously put a lot of thought and care into it. Bottom line: your ideas, along with others', led to @TTrimble getting involved in the discussion, which in turn, led @A to the Michael Shermer article in which he cites Jason Rosenhouse as the source of the explanation which finally turned on the light bulb for her. @A's summation, then lit @Nancy's light, and Bob's your uncle. There are now at least two lights lit that weren't (and possibly others), and God (the all-knowing goatherd, aka Monty Hall) can rest in peace. 🙏
@AJ 10:34 AM
In case your question hasn't already been answered, there are a couple of (two) LLs in the word "doLLar". :)
___
Peace ~ Empathy ~ Kindness to all 🕊
MASER: Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Sweet!
All those names. What’s the point?
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> > > > > DISCO IS LIFE
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@Z 923am "Like, now" would have been nice, too. It's not as if italicizing clues is impossible, so I guess I'm in total agreement with the BITEME attitude for atheist-solvers.
937am Thanks for the Kate Pierson video. Who's the guy? 😉
@A my name is Mimi 1131am (May I call you that?😉) Thanks for the welcome back and I agree with all of ELS, including that too-cute-by-half clueing we've seen a lot of lately. Ugh. Freezing rain here, but go ahead and gloat about putting the TOP down for your trip. Oh, and good luck! 😉
Not for nothin', but I hate it when I miss commentariat discussions so loaded with chew they're being mentioned days later...then again, perhaps I'm glad I missed it...? Wondering, though, what Monty Hall did to qualify for such attention.
Meant to add: Oh, and before anyone says "go back and read the comments from 2 days ago", can I just say "have you met me??" If no, congratulations. If yes, you should know better.
I watch a lot of hoop, college and pro, and I've never heard anyone, player or coach or pundit, say BALL IS LIFE. Never saw such on a tee shirt or tat. For me, of course, quantum mechanics is life, but I don't go around proclaiming such or have a tee shirt with that written out in Sanskrit, either.
@burtonkd - I think it was Tim Donaghy who told the story of refs betting on who could T up Sheed first. Proving again that just because you sound paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.
As for “ass key” v “as key,” Do I look like Cardi B? Or Sir Mix-A-Lot?
@Douglas - Thanks for the correction. People tend to forget that Johnson/Jabbar/Bird/McHale/Thomas spent the second half of the ‘80’s demonstrating that Jordan was second tier. It wasn’t until the NBA changed the rules to disfavor the Pistons (and the better players mostly retired) that he was able to win any championships. Most over-rated player ever in any sport.
@A - 🤣😂🤣😂🤣 - Upon further review, he was born Monte Halparin so we are all correct. 😎 Yet another reason to look askance at proper names. (And just in case it isn’t obvious - I do make a mild attempt at accepted spellings but any comment on spelling by me is made with tongue firmly in cheek)
@Nancy - Much more important than that. - Were you listening to our Board meeting about resuming play? It’s also a recurring theme in our community survey.
@Frantic
Just Google Monte Hall Problem.
The wife and I did not really enjoy this one. We didn't know a majority of the proper nouns, even after we filled the crosses. SW was the worst offender. Had no idea what APIAN was, didn't know LANA, and didn't know AROS. The SW was pretty miserable. TAcoS instead of TAPAS, and SyncED instead of STORED didn't help.
NE gave us quite a bit of trouble too. I've never heard of the term MEETCUTE, and it's very awkward sounding. Never listened to Sgt Pepper, and MRKITE sounded as good as MRKITt, MRKITs, and a few others seemed plausible. LEICA sounded right after we got it (had to look up), but only just barely.
I don't think these make puzzles bad per se. I know trivia is just part of it. And it was fun to get an more obscure answer like ASCIIART early on, being a computer nerd. It does get frustrating with this much proper noun crossing though.
I enjoyed everything outside of that. We're still getting adjusted to end-of-the-week difficulty, so it's fun filling in the more vague clues. It takes us some time, but it's fun hanging out, sipping on some coffee, and solving problems together for an hour! Well except, for some of the proper noun crosses :).
I enjoyed the blog today more than most. Its good to hear Rex go philosophical, especially when I agree with him. Proper names are my biggest struggle with puzzles (though to be honest, I struggle with a whole lot of stuff). I can't believe how much Rex knows about popular culture and names; I am an old, retired college professor, whose field (neurophysiology) doesn't help much with NYT crossowrds while Rex's field probably helps a lot. So some of the names leapt out at me like Hamm and Lovett, while others require a lot of crosses and some guesswork. What would a puzzle look like with NO proper names? It might be more fun for me.
@12:20 - Damn. Google Translate doesn’t do Sanskrit but how about Hindi?
क्वांटम भौतिकी जीवन है
I’d wear that shirt.
After a vocalist retires, can you call them a SANGER?
@JOHN X 1212pm I don't expect you to answer me, but does anyone know if that link is Eddie Izzard with Geoffrey Rush?
Oh, @Z 1220pm Must you? Really? Do you have an endless supply of sticks for bear-poking or what? 🤣
@JC66 1224pm Thank you, but then what? If the answer is read the hits/articles/whatever...you lost me. 😉
@Nancy 1052am
Alas, just boring ole me.
Originally a gift, but not to me. My ex's grandfather was in the state department and was stationed in Ethiopia for some years. I imagine part of his job was keeping the King happy. I guess he was good at it. It was his going away present. He also had an impressive collection of opals. They may have come from his days in India or elsewhere.
Surprised at the limited objection to lASER/DATAlINE crossing. Looked so plausible, I never thought to check it. My bad. Otherwise, I flew. Can’t remember a Saturday where answers came into my head in such immediate fashion. Fun, thanks, YY.
Agree about the Knicks’ resurgence. With the trio of superstars in Brooklyn, it’s refreshing to see the young guys in the Garden doing well and showing such support for each other.
I enjoyed being in this constructor's head & I got really far except for Maser (had taser and/or laser). Very enjoyable. Thank you,
What's not enjoyable is that Rex has disappointed me in never listening to Sgt. Pepper " My hero - your loss, Rex.
@What? 12:09 PM
I'll assume you're asking me (if not, my apologies).
Sometimes it takes teamwork to get the job done, even when the team members don't necessarily know each other. When possible, team members deserve recognition. 😊
___
p - 25
Peace ~ Empathy ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Easy. Much faster than yesterday’s.
BALL IS LIFE was a WOE as well as DANIEL and LANA (as clued)*. MASER was only very vaguely familiar. The rest was pretty much cake. A smattering of sparkle, liked it.
*After reading @Rex I realized I do sorta know LANA. We’ve recently watched the three Netflix movies she stars in, but I never processed her name. Coincidentally one of the plot threads in the third movie involved MEET CUTE.
Far easier than yesterday, for me. HAILE, MEETCUTE, and MASSAGE wemt right in. The entire SE was a piece of cake. Some resistance here and there, but not much.
Didn't know ISIDORA, but did immediately think of ISIDORe Dockweiler, after whom a park in LA is named. My grandfather would have known him well, as they were both prominent supporters of the local Catholic cathedral, St Vibiana's. (I know, Isidore could be a Jewish name, but not in this case).
MRKITE not only went right in, but I found myself remembering the lyrics. I must have played that album hundreds of times, as I did with the White Album.
I have no problem with Margaret SANGER. A pioneer in making birth control legal. Sometimes people do the right thing for the wrong reasons, which is way better than doing the wrong thing for the right reasons.
@ Frantic Sloth 12:32 PM
That is indeed Eddie Izzard and Geoffrey Rush, in Mystery Men (1999)
@JC66 1:06 - Spoilers and Typos? And am I to blame for “Monte” like @A alleges?
@Her Slothiness - Moi? As to who that guy is, I think I found his Z.
Please explain els couple of dollars?
Margaret Sanger. Mother of Eugenics. No issue? Just because it’s Planned Parenthood? I totally expected this to be your lead. Lost a lot of respect for your lack of consistency in calling former heroes out for their now-understood evils Rex.
@belvy it’s that stupid overused spelling out of letters. There are two “l” letters in “dollars”
@Belvy: doLLars has got a couple of L's (els) in it. Feel justifiably free to moan, tho.
M&A's first message had several marvelous typos, today, includin:
* "pus" should be "puz" [mostly Otto Correct's fault].
* an extra "the" before "oh, the nanoseconds … the nanoseconds". [M&A bein in a rush's fault.]
M&A Help Desk
Regret my wording earlier. I can’t imagine Rex cares if I respect him or not. He doesn’t know me.
@JC66 last night: well unfortunately the Acrostic offered not one iota of resistance, so I can't really say it was fun. I look forward to it taking a little time to solve, and this one sure didn't.
Also, I'm not a fan of the subject matter. So there was that. :-)
@Z not sure I agree with overrated, but if memory serves Joe D constantly shut down MJ. He was stoppable!
@Z
Oops, my first mistake this year.
@bocamp-
Apparently most of the lyrics to "Mr. Kite" were lifted nearly verbatim from a Victorian circus poster that John found somewhere--
Pablo Fanques (but he had a "Circus Royal")
"Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite"
The Hendersons
"Hoops", "a trampoline"
AND "a hogshead of real fire"
The horse who dances the waltz was originally named "Zanthus", but no one was sure of how to pronounce it, so "Henry".
Source-"Beatles Lyrics"
pabloinnh, fellow baseball lover
I was convinced that 35A was "STONED" for too long!
Easy NYT Saturday ... 34% below my Saturday 6-month median solve time
Easy Week continues. This is my 9th fastest solve time of 479 contemporaneously solved NYT Saturdays (that doesn't include 134 DNFs) and 29th of 1,229 if I include pre-June 2009 puzzles solved from the archives (excluding 194 DNFs). My solve time was a Medium Thursday/Challenging Wednesday these days.
I don't know yet if others found this puzzle relatively easy, but it felt like one of those solves where the answers were just coming to me from out of the blue. It was like I was channeling the constructor. I had a similar experience with today's LAT puzzle and that was totally unexpected since Matthew Sewell was the constructor of that one. I usually find his puzzles to be pretty tough. I'm even more surprised because I posted relatively slow solve times today on both of my first two puzzles of the day, the typically NYT Monday- or Tuesday-level USA Today and Universal puzzles. Weird.
My WTF of the day is DADAS {45A: Some didy changers}. I had no idea what the hell the clue was referring to until I filled in all the crosses and realized that it must be a CUTEsy word that someone somewhere uses for diapers. Oof!
Looking back at the grid, there are quite a few answers that I really have no idea how I came up with, starting with the grid-opener BALL IS LIFE {1A: Hoopster's mantra}. That one crossed four other brow-furrowing answers: AMELIA {2D: Renato's wife in Verdi's "Un Ballo in Maschera"}, LAS {4D: "___ Mañanitas" (Mexican birthday song)} (pretty guess-able though, even for this Spanish illiterate), INES {5D: Woman's name that's also a plural suffix} and ISADORA {8D: George Sand title heroine}. How the heck did I get that NW section?
It's hard for me to give less than two thumbs up to a Saturday puzzle that I tear through as I did this one. I can't see much to complain about except maybe the number of names. I just counted 13 of them, not including other proper nouns like AUG, MET GALA and MILANOS. That seems like a lot. Thank goodness that ELS, ALEC and DADAS aren't clued as names.
@Joe Dipinto 2:22 PM
I'll give it a go. :)
@pabloinnh 2:44 PM
Didn't know that. Good catch. ⚾️
___
pg - 10
Peace ~ Empathy ~ Kindness to all 🕊
@Frantic Sloth 9:20
Thanks, Sweet Sloth, and glad you're back.
@Nancy 10:52
My standards and yours sound like they would mesh perfectly. My mother's, however, were of a different order all together, hence my faithful silver polishing at her behest. She probably thought she was instilling in me all the correct housekeeping virtues, but I think her project may have backfired. A distant relative has that tea service now. I wonder how it's doing.
@Gill I. 10:53 and @Tale Told 10:59
Thanks for the grandmotherly wisdom. Hmm, is there a course I can take? No, I think it's all on-the-job learning. Being the third grandmother (the parents' two mothers are alive and well and all set to step in), I figure I can be the loopy one and have all the silly, irresponsible fun!
At one point, we bought a used Chevy van that had been "converted" -- carpet on the floor, a couch bolted to the floor in back, two swivel-mounted "captain's chairs," and two front seats with the engine between them under a plastic cover. It came with a stereo/cd player. We got it so we could drive across the country (well, Boston to Montana) with 3 kids, a dog, and lots of gear. (In those days, the kids could lie on the floor and nobody thought anything of it; out West kids would ride in the back of a pickup truck, and hardly ever bounced out). Anyway, we played Sgt. Pepper all the time, one of 3 or 4 CDs in our main rotation. Then a few years later we had to get the stereo fixed, and realized that one of the channels had not worked at all -- and there were a couple songs on Sgt. Pepper where the lyrics were on only one channel. I'm pretty sure Mr. Kite was one of them. But anyway, I can almost hear the song now -- but never knew what that initial consonant was, so I had to get FLICKED before I could fill it in; and that was delayed because I had nAnAS (as a form of nannies no one uses). Pretty sure didy is a Britishism.
Further compounding my problem with that corner was my figuring, wrongly, that if one of your names was Kaluuya, the other one might well be nANIEL. I didn't even think about whether another consonant would work better until, again, I got FLICKED. And DEM could have been a lot of things.
At least I had the good sense to wait for the crosses before putting in sushi as the type of bar.
@Guillherme, I think you missed @Rex's point. He wasn't putting down YouTube, he was saying that it's an awfully vague clue, when there are specifics that would have helped. Kind of like cluing Ernest Hemingway as "writer."
What I learned today I: I thought I knew a lot about George Sand, only to discover that I could not name a single thing that she wrote.
What I learned today II: I had always just assumed that Toni Braxton must be the daughter of the famous saxophonist Anthony Braxton. Apparently, that is not the case.
Like saying he knows the work of tony bennett well but never listened to i left my heart in san francisco.
@jberg:
hardly ever bounced out
except for my sister's wedding near San Diego (one scary airport, btw) I haven't been Out West, but from what I'm told kids out there have proven Darwin correct: they have talons for fingers and prehensile tails.
@bocamp
So I was yd pg -1 as well. I wonder if we were stuck on the same word? Mine was 5 letters, and means something in science. (And rhymes with an adjective I could apply to it, as SB words go.)
td pg -5.
@TTrimble 5:02 PM
SB Stuff
Yeah, thot I'd looked at that ending, but if so, obviously failed to tack on the first two letters. D'oh! Needless to say, it's now on my "@jae's List". LOL
pg -6
Peace ~ Empathy ~ Teamwork ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Took me less than half the time that yesterday needed. Knew a few of the proper names and had some lucky guesses for others. Tried GIVE ME THE BALL for 1A which didn’t last long. Echoing others, I was trying for some variant of APIARY for 27D and had FLIPPED before FLICKED. No clue about the DADAS despite being one.
Loved all the gentle (?) barbs at OFL over Sgt Pepper. Was wondering how many “that’s like saying I love X but have never heard Y” retorts there’d be ;-)
Great to see @Gill I back in the saddle.
Along the lines of Sgt. Pepper, there's two albums which I would rank right there, The Point by Nillson, and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis. If you've never heard of/ listened to them, it worth your while. I have both albums! The Point one even with the booklet!
RooMonster To The Point Guy
@RooMonster (5:58pm) ... Ooh! A Peter Gabriel-era Genesis reference! Yet another thing I like about you!
"Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" is an absolute masterpiece. I always thought that someone should stage it. If Green Day could do it with "American Idiot", surely it could work with LLDoB. Back in the '80s, I would go see a Genesis/Jethro Tull tribute band that put on quite a show up in the Akron area at a venue called "The Flying Machine". It came complete with light show, costumes and stage sets. It was really quite something. The band's name was Fayrewether and Google tells me that Paul Fayrewether has a Facebook and YouTube presence. I think it's time to a take a trip down memory lane.
@ttrimble 5:02 I love your comment about yd 5-letter science word - absolutely agree!
@gill I 10:53 In the UK those things are called nappies (from napkins). One used to see them hanging from washing-lines, but no more.
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band ranks number three on my list behind Rum Sodomy and the Lash, and Exile on Main St.
@Joe DiPinto 2:22pm. Bizarre. I thought today's acrostic was the hardest ever, and it's not close. First pass through the clues got me B. and what turned out to be an incorrect answer for K. Second pass I fixed K. and put in a guess for C. (which has two very plausible answers). That was it for a long time. A lot of the cluing just seemed off today (E., M., O., Q., V.), and there was just a ton of cross-referencing to the theme, so hard to get any traction.
@RooMonster, @sanfranman59
Well looky kere! Looks like we have some prog rock fans in this crowd! Nice to meet you! The old Genesis was such a remarkable band when they had Peter Gabriel. I'll have to revisit that album.
@kitshef
You're just not old enough. ;-)
@Barbara S....Playing second or even third fiddle to a child means squat. AND....of course you learn it on the job - especially when they want ice cream before dinner. However, never think you won't matter in his little life. My step-mom always felt she had to take a back seat. To this day, she is one of the most important person in my life. She was ALWAYS there when I needed her most. Just a little food for thought.
@Enile 6:35. I know, right? I had to look up Dity because at first I thought it was a little song missing its other "T." So I saw it was a British diaper. That's when I turned to Mr Scouser and asked him. Nappie, indeed.
Cheers.
PS...No side effects from first COVID shot. Damn... I know it's the drink I had before getting it. (With apologies to those that don't imbibe)...
I was all set to put the C in to make CLICKED at 21D when I saw it just wouldn't work at 21A...
can someone explain how "cinches" leads to the answer "ices."
Wrapping up the NE, I was all set to put in the C to make CLICKED at 21D, but then I saw it just wouldn't work at 21A...
Thank you! Bite me was all wrong. Like the way a pre-teen would use it without knowing what it really meant.
@kitshef – I did wonder how the Acrostic would play for someone unfamiliar with the theme. Like you I started at "B", but I also knew "I", which made me pick up on "G" and "J". After that the rest fell in fairly quickly. The non-theme-related clues seemed very guessable to me.
@GILL I et al
After my first shot (Moderna) my arm was sore for about a day, After the second shot my arm was sore and I felt logy for about a day.
People I know have had worse reactions; especially after the second shot.
@Julie
In sports, the idiom ICE means to secure the win. I.e, That touchdown pass ICED it for the Giants (I wish).
@kitshef 6:48 PM
My experience closely matched yours, because I'll bet I made some of the exact same missteps as you did, and possibly a few more. Agree about C., and I can make a plausible guess what you tried for K. I also thought J. had a completely plausible alternative, an 8-letter word having virtually the same meaning (can you guess?). For U. I had an alternative ending which would match the clue (IMO the actual answer is much less common). For D. I made a wrong guess although the first two letters and the last letter match that guess. Oh, and G. caused me trouble because of math. Sheesh!
I don't quite agree that E., M., O., Q., V. were off, but you know how to reach me if you want to talk about it. I admit there was some element of misdirection in Q.
I'm not sure about hardest I've ever seen, but for me hardest in my recent experience. That @Joe D. found it so easy annoys me (another of a string of annoyances for me today).
@TTrimble – Nyah, nyah. :-)
In all fairness, JC66's tease last night probably primed me to look for certain things right off the bat. I also saw two possibilities for "C" but figuring out the author took care of that. And I also think clue "E" is off the mark, but obviously they wanted to shoehorn it into the theme.
"Q" and "U" are slightly weird, but really, as I look at the result now, most of the clues still seem pretty straightforward.
@GILL - we got our second shots yesterday and today was the first time in years I didn’t work out. Of course, your milage may very.
@Joe Dipinto
Dissecting this further, part of my problem was not knowing immediately B; that had to be inferred. (You're a resident music encyclopedist; of course you would know.) Had I known that, then the precise way in which the author's name is displayed would have been obvious to me, and then C would have been obvious as well, etc., etc.
(This must be the most boring reading imaginable for anyone not following.)
I understand why E. looks weird, but etymologically it's not "unfaithful".
Some of the answers I put in and took out and put back in. But I agree there wasn't much, if anything, you could call outrageous. Probably I just had an off day. (Well, that seems obvious to me.)
@Joe D
Don't blame me for being so smart.
@TTrimble – well this should make you laugh: for the longest time, even after I'd solved the whole thing, I couldn't figure out what "M" was referring to in clue "L". I thought maybe it was the James Bond character, ridiculous as that would be. *Finally* I realized it meant Answer "M". (And it's not like they haven't done that with the clues before; they have.)
ICES vs aces = DNF
At least you have the guts to admit that you've never listened to Sgt. P. Now go listen to it, you Philistine.
super enjoyable despite a technical DNF by one letter. (i had ACES for ICES and had no idea the ethiopian person - i still don't quite see how clinches = ices, ices certainly has many meanings [cools, murders, decorates, puts aside/86's by putting on ice...] but clinch to me is more like getting the win, sealing the deal. oh well!)
a bit bummed i didn't get a beatles clue right away, but admittedly the pre-sgt pepper era is what i like best of their discography, although sgt pepper & the white album certainly have some great tracks.
anyway, still my favorite type of crossword. one where i got down the list of across clues and had barely anything, thought "there's no way i can finish this, ugh" and then the down clues stumped me almost as much...until i started to bust open the bottom half. worked and worked and finally got it! very satisfying. aside from HAMM, LEICA, MET GALA, and AUG, i didn't know any of the proper nouns, actually, so kudos to the maker for not piling them in such a way that made the puzzle not only unsolvable but un-fun. really makes all the difference!
@Nancy faceplant is when you literally fall on your face. face PALM was the answer which is when your palm meets your face...aka [fore]head slap ;) another of my favorites from ye olde internet days in a similar vein is HEADDESK.
ascii is an acronym for American Standard Code for Information Interchange - basically any character you can type with a keyboard is an ascii character. so ascii art is making art with the characters available to you on the keyboard. it's actually quite fun and robust a category that has been around for a long time. the example in the clue is just a teeny tiny representation of what's possible. people would create entire pages of art using ascii characters.
@RooMonster the point is one of my favorite, favorite albums. when i moved out and went to college, my dad burnt a copy from the vinyl onto a cd for me. see, the thing about the point was, i never made it through the whole thing in one go, i'd always fall asleep as a kid listening to it. i was flat out miserable my entire freshman year of college and i played that cd to death each night. worked every time.
Please explain “face palm.” Jim
Can someone please explain the "Couple of dollars? ELS" clue? I got it from the crosses, but I just don't get it. Maybe I'm overthinking it. Thank you. I also loved this puzzle, relatively fast Saturday for me.
@Monty Montague - Asked and answered. If you use your find function for ELS you’ll find several explanations.
There are a couple of lls in dollar...
Nice puzzle, but too many proper names. You have to listen to Sgt Pepper’s.
One day in the 70's, a time when I was a long haired, bearded,white art student crossing a street in Manhatten on my way to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, a middle aged black woman came up to me looking concerned but sympathetic and asked if I had heared who died? When I ansered no, who?, she said Elvis.
I was not a fan, but after that appreciated Elvis's influence as a bridge between the two communities.It sounds like a fun course.
I so wanted the drone home to be an Ant Farm...
And of course Harry the Horse dances the waltz! Wow, a Beatles expert who never heard Sgt. Pepper?? That's like, a Steinbeck expert who never read East of Eden, or a Hitchcock enthusiast who never saw Psycho!
IMEANTOSAY, unlikely. This one took a lot of guesswork at the Space station. I got ARON okay--a welcome respite from the Elvis middle name thing--but I knew nothing of Toni's sister, or even that she HAD a sister. DOD Mia HAMM was a gimme (gimme indeed!), but after minor Superman character Lang and major Hollywood star of yesteryear Turner, my LANAs are exhausted. And MRKITE! Man, that one took some rust-scraping, bigtime! ONCE I had a few letters, it came back, but for a while I'd forgotten that he was actually in the song title.
BALLISLIFE was very hard to arrive at, but mulling it over it makes sense. For many in the sport, basketball can mean the difference between rags and riches, literally. More power to those who made it. Baseball, though, is a close second. A player named Lindor was just traded to the Mets. Total contract: $341 MILLION! Yikes!
After considerable toil and accumulation of triumph points (no, this was NOT an EASYA by any stretch), I emerged INONEPIECE and awarded a birdie.
Aside from the profusion of proper names, I LEIKA a puzzle like this.
NON-GRIPE
To MEETCUTE women is so EASYA
guy might LOVETT, so RIPE and rife;
more than ONEPIECE, IMEANTOSAY,
so let’s get LIT, to BALLISLIFE!
--- DANIEL ARON SANGER
Nary a write-over. Yeah baby Mia HAMM with HAILE cross got me going and off to the races.
I've seen Lyle LOVEET live a coupla times. Highly recommended. I have a number of his CDs. A guy in my Swedish (not SUEDE) class translated one of LOVETT's songs (If I had a Pony) into Swedish as an exercise. Kinda funny how it turned out.
BRAM Stoker in the corners.
Lords woulda been my TRACI.
Easy, fun puz. TATA.
This was the easiest Saturday puzzle ever! First entry was BITE ME and I was off to the races. Felt more like a Wednesday, so fast did the answers come. Talk about getting on the constructor's wavelength. Wheelhouse.
An easy Saturday puzzle if there ever was one. But didn't get all of it, moving smoothly from the East to the less yielding West.
The best “Hooper’s mantra” to me is Rasheed Wallace’s “Ball don’t lie”. BALL IS LIFE lacks Rasheed’s zip and wit.
Had face (“Countenance”) instead of MIEN, and didn’t come up with MASER (“Atomic clock keeper”).
ACAI seems recently to be a constructor's favorite go-to fill. Maybe time to put it to rest for a while.
Overall a welcome softball.
Didn't think it was THAT easy. Nor too hard.
@Rondo showed me the error of my ways yesterday - my post was lost in the 200+ group. Hasn't happened in a while.
We've been packing/cleaning/boxing up/washing the last couple of days. Now, tonight, we shall deserve some FINEDINING. (In other words, I won't be cooking.)
What would the celebrated MR KITE say?
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
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