.png)
TV channel for college sports / MON 3-1-2021 / Laudable Lauder / "And you?" to Caesar / Sweetheart, in Salerno
Monday, March 1, 2021
Constructor: Michael Lieberman
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: World's Fairs — Theme answers were exhibits at the World's Fair.
Theme answers:
Word of the Day: EDSEL (33D: '50s Ford flop) —
- SPACE NEEDLE (18A: Seattle, 1962)
- EIFFEL TOWER (27A: Paris, 1889)
- FERRIS WHEEL (45A: Chicago, 1893)
- WORLD'S FAIRS (58A: Events for which the answers to the three italicized clues were built)
Word of the Day: EDSEL (33D: '50s Ford flop) —
Edsel is a brand of automobile that was marketed by the Ford Motor Company from the 1958 to the 1960 model years. Deriving its name from Edsel Ford, Edsels were developed in an effort to give Ford a fourth brand to gain additional market share from Chrysler and General Motors. Established as an expansion of the Lincoln-Mercury Division to three brands (re-christened the Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln Division), Edsel shared a price range with Mercury; the division shared its bodies with both Mercury and Ford.
(Wikipedia)
• • •
Happy August Monday! I think we need one of those right now. It's been so snowy and rainy and cold here. Where's the sunshine? Breezed right through this one, despite the ESPNU/UTE cross being nigh impossible for me as someone who doesn't like sports unless I'm the one playing 'em. East side had me saying wheeeeeeeee thanks to all the E's. I complained about AXE/AXLE in the crossword discord and was quickly reminded that the words don't actually share a root, which, fair. But they sound so similar! Also, yeah, I had POSTAL for PARCEL too despite sort of knowing in my heart that it wasn't gonna be right.
This was a really cute theme for a Monday! Learned a little World's Fair trivia. It's wild to me that the Space Needle was completed as recently as 1962. Does anyone remember reading about it in the paper, or maybe even going to see it in person soon after construction? Or ever? I've never been, myself.
This was a really cute theme for a Monday! Learned a little World's Fair trivia. It's wild to me that the Space Needle was completed as recently as 1962. Does anyone remember reading about it in the paper, or maybe even going to see it in person soon after construction? Or ever? I've never been, myself.
Speaking of the World's Fair, did you know the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair boasted human zoos? Exhibits consisting of people? Yeah.
Bullets:
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
- EIFFEL TOWER (27A: Paris, 1889) — Ah, the top of le tour d'Eiffel. That was where I first got to know my high school sweetheart. (We then proceeded to get separated from the rest of our school group and wander around a metro station for two hours trying to find them again before giving up and going back to the hotel. Never did see Notre Dame...)
- SNAIL (50A: Word before shell or mail) — Do you want to watch a snail eat for four minutes with me?
- AXE (61A: Jack Nicholson's weapon in "The Shining") — I can't think of this movie without thinking of my stepfather scaring the living bejeezus out of me by sticking his head through the staircase slats and yelling HEEEEEERE'S JOHNNY! at the top of his lungs while I was watching with a friend.
- OSCAR (29D: ____ the Grouch) — This dude loves trash.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
[Follow August Thompson on Twitter]
Save And Share :
138 comments:
I flew through this like a hot knife through a butter sculpture at the fair. Despite it being so easy, I did learn a new word, which is one of the great pleasures and benefits of crossword solving.
I was in a fraternity in college (yes, it was a few semesters back; class of 1964 to be exact) and I am still considered a member as those memberships are for life. Never heard the word FRATTY until today.
Why? Why is EWW even a word? It should be EeW. This and the ahh vs aah business is a craw-sticker for me. Even the clue was "Yu-u-uck!" and not "Yuck-k-k!" C'mon!
Pretty basic Mondee fare with a straightforward theme and fill that had a little bite sprinkled about.
MOB ASTROS STEALS. How apt.
🧠.5
🎉🎉
The ESPNU/UTE cross leads me to note that the prevalence of sports clues in Sunday’s puzzle and now in today’s puzzle is pretty tiresome.
Fratty might be the worst word I have seen in a crossword puzzle EVER.
Thanks for a refreshing take, August. I particularly liked,
It's wild to me that the Space Needle was completed as recently as 1962. Does anyone remember reading about it in the paper, or maybe even going to see it in person soon after construction? Or ever? I've never been, myself.
Of course many of us remember it well. I even remember the incessant TV commercials I watched in Eugene, Oregon. They urged us via a musical jingle to “pack up your troubles and head for the fair ......... IN SEATTLE!!! We did exactly this, and I vaguely remember waiting in a long line to ascend the Space Needle. By the way, why is the phrase Worlds Fair? Is it plural? Possesive? We don’t say County’s Fair ( or Counties Fair) or State’s Fair. A mystery that may not be worth pondering.
The puzzle was so easy that it has already faded from my memory, other than the themers. But I remember enjoying both it and the Seattle Worlds Fair. Thanks Michael Lieberman.
Concur. FRATTY is not a word.
Well I was on the right track when I wanted WORLDS FAIR HOST at 18A, just a bunch of letters too many. Went to that one with Mom, Dad and my bratty brother. What a trip. The others were just a wee bit before my time.
Fun Monday.
Easy. Solid theme, very smooth, a couple of nice long downs, liked it a bunch!
A fine debut!
Rather delightful, though FRATTY was *horrible* and I knee-jerked POSTAL in at 63A, which clogged things up there for a good minute... otherwise, perfect little Monday treat!
Except for FERRRIS WHEEL I did the theme with no crosses. On Monday puzzles I like to go after the theme first thing, just for fun. Today's was tailor made for that approach. Nice, drek-free grid. FRATTY is a bit shaky but far from the worst. My vote for that "honor" is LATEN.
Very clean grid, easy to solve, with a theme that evokes interesting images – I’d call that just right for a Monday.
I’d never heard of FRATTY before, thinking it was a pretty random adjectifying of a noun, like saying, “My kitchen is quite CABINETTY”, but the Internet has definitions and all for FRATTY, so I’ve learned something.
The breezy feel put me in a good mood – thank you for this, Michael, and enjoy your Debut Day!
Nice puzzle - pretty much perfect for a Monday. I can’t recall the last time I heard someone use the term “gads about” like that - maybe it’s just old school - or perhaps a regional thing. Is it still in common usage ?
I would include CARA, along with the aforementioned EWW and the front-running FRATTY as the finalists for made-up-word of the day. Nice job by Shortz - a crisp, clean Monday and he still snuck in 3 made-up award nominees (although he only gets partial credit for hiding behind the “it’s ok because I found a foreign language that one of them means something in” guise. I suggest, if you are going to make up a word - just own up to it and make up a random something that it kind of means or sounds like as well (see the clue for EWW, for example).
"Fratty". Apparently both the constructor and the editors decided "Ah, that's good enough for a Monday. The hell with it".
AROD. All that natural ability and it still didn't stop him from cheating his ass off.
Nice, clean Monday. Simplistic theme - but overall a smooth grid. ASTROS over STEALS is spot on - add INDICT, SECRET and SLY and we go full boat. I have two sons in their 20s and they use the adjectival FRATTY - don’t have an issue with it.
Enjoyable solve on a gloomy Monday.
Wanted worlds fair for 18A but when that didn’t fit and after I got to 27A the theme and first two themers became clear. Ferris wheel took a little longer as there are lots of Ferris wheels but only one needle and one tower.
I’ve only been to one Worlds’ Fair – New York 1964-5. I remember the Sinclair “brontosaurus”, and I remember that night going to sleep and thinking I could hear its footsteps (it was actually just my heartbeat).
That may possibly be my earliest memory. Unfortunately, anyone who would know whether we went in ’64 or ’65 is dead. In late 1964 I got gastroenteritis and have some memories related to that. So if we went to the World’s Fair in ’64, my earliest memory is of dinosaurs. If we went in ’65, my earliest memory is dehydration.
I share the general condemnation of FRATTY.
Is the finale of Samuel's telegram a Morse CODA?
Glad that 48D wasn't clued 'liver fluids'. (Simone _____)
The name EDSEL may have been cursed (if you believe in such things). Edsel Bryant Ford, for whom the car was named, was the son of pioneering industrialist Henry Ford. He died of stomach cancer at age 49 in 1943.
Thank you, @Michael, this Mon. puz was much more than "fair", and was a very "nice idea". :)
Med. solve.
Another good start in the NW, and steady progress all the way.
Enjoyed Expo 84 in Vancouver. No landmarks on a par with the themers, tho. The "Sky Train" LRT system did coincide with the fair, so there's that.
Holly "Holy" ~ Neil Diamond
Call the sun in the dead of the night
And the sun's gonna rise in the sky
Touch a man who can't walk upright
And that lame man, he's gonna fly
And I fly
And I fly
Holly holy love
Take the lonely child
And the seed
Let it be filled with tomorrow
Holly holy
Sing it strong (Sing, sing, sing, sing)
Yeah…
___
yd 0
Peace ~ Empathy ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Before realizing it was Worlds Fairs I tried to make Sears Tower fit, so that slowed things down! Otherwise just right for a Monday.
I have hazy memories of the 1964 WF in Queens, although what strikes me now is that my mother, with 3 kids under 7, trekked there from the wilds of exurban NJ. But she was from the UES, so it probably didn't seem far. Maybe we visited my grandparents along the way.
Finally visited the Space Needle a few years ago. Randomly got some kind of double tickets with Dale Chihuly, highly recommended!!
I'm surprised by the commentary about FRATTY. I had no idea it was that unusual. Coincidentally, I used the word last night at dinner speaking about an all-boys three-day religious retreat we did in high school and explaining that it was more "fratty" than anything else. I'm mid-to-late Gen X, if that makes a difference. Quickly running a search through the New York Times, I see it show up several times in print. GQ magazine just had it in an article three weeks ago. It's a word. Colloquial, but definitely a word and not just a one-off.
I'll join the FRATTY-is-awful brigade.
I liked BRUTE FORCE and the way it was clued. I remember learning how Watson the computer answered questions on "Jeopardy" as compared to the mere humans like Ken Jennings. Or maybe that was the solving style of the chess computer, Deep Blue? I guess it's both of them, actually.
I did learn from this puzzle that the EIFFEL TOWER was built for a WORLD'S FAIR. I had no idea. Who was the French wit who said he rented space in the EIFFEL TOWER "because it was the one place in Paris where I would never have to see it"?
Alas, there was no challenge in this puzzle at all. I'll join @egs in saying that it's "already faded from memory."
My five favorite clues from last week
(in order of appearance):
1. Jumper cable? (6)
2. Good as gold, and others? (6)
3. Something found after many years? (3)
4. They hit the sauce a lot (6)
5. Humbugs? (4)
BUNGEE
ERRATA
AGO
LADLES
BEES
The 1893 FERRIS WHEEL was America's answer to the 1889 EIFFEL TOWER, engineering prowess-wise.
Speaking of which: BRUTE FORCE -- I have an old brass Coptic processional cross, which for over twenty years was bent at its top circle. Back in the day, it had hung from the high ceiling near the bookshelves in our Minneapolis fourplex apartment. It had fallen, flipped like a cat, and bent slightly at the tip on impact with the wood floor. Over the years, I tried to straighten it without doing damage, always too tentative. A never fixed, never broken stalemate. It's hung on a wall by the work bench wherever we've lived since, a project on deck indefinitely.
Yesterday afternoon, I was in the kitchen and the mind wandered to the backstory of how that cross came into our possession. I went out to the garage work area, took it down from the wall, put it into the vice with cardboard buffers, cranked as tight as I could, waited, cranked some more, and then again. What a NICE IDEA.
And now it's fine, just a little scuffed at the very tip. I could have fixed it at any point in those two-plus decades of limbo just by cranking it as hard as I could in a vice. Why now?
I was going to come here and enthuse about the glorious extravaganza aspect of nineteenth-century World’s Fairs and then I clicked on August’s link about human exhibits and all my zeal was gone. Instead I’ll just give you Georges Seurat’s "Eiffel Tower", painted the same year as the Fair, and mention Erik Larson’s book The Devil in the White City, which contains a lot of vivid detail about the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.
I remember the fact of the Seattle World’s Fair in 1962 although I didn’t go. I was a kid then and my family lived in nearby Vancouver. There was a lot of hype that must have crossed the border because it seemed that *everyone* was talking about that Fair. Canada hosted a crackerjack WF in 1967 in Montreal, dubbed Expo ‘67. I was still a kid, we no longer lived in the west, and I went to Expo both with my family and on a school trip (it was a looong bus ride). That was Canada’s centennial year and there was much political pontificating about Expo being the demonstration of Canada’s finally taking her rightful place on the World Stage, blah, blah, blah. That was a highly entertaining Fair, though.
Today two excerpts from RALPH ELLISON, born Mar. 1, 1914.
"I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination - indeed, everything and anything except me."
* * * * * * * * * * * *
“I'd like to hear five recordings of Louis Armstrong playing and singing "What Did I Do to Be so Black and Blue"-all at the same time. Sometimes now I listen to Louis while I have my favorite dessert of vanilla ice cream and sloe gin. I pour the red liquid over the white mound, watching it glisten and the vapor rising as Louis bends that military instrument into a beam of lyrical sound.”
Louis Armstrong, “(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue”
Instrumental first; Louis starts singing about 1:30: the lyrics are important.
(Both passages from Invisible Man)
Hey All !
Non puz related first, my arm is really hurting, and not from a COVID shot. It started yesterday. I'm pretty sure it's from sleeping on it wrong, as I have this wacky pillow that supposedly aligns your spine, but makes it where you end up with sore arms in the morning. My arm is achy, not just sore. Point being, does anyone know of a good pillow? I've tried a few now.
Back to puz, simple theme, easy as pie. Or a piece of cake. Or creamy as an Oreo. (If we use food for ease, why not?) Yummy as a cheesecake slice?
My time was 6 and 1/2 minutes. I can imagine Rex breaking into the low 2's on this one, as I am usually 2-3xRex, and I don't go for speed. Nice theme, not sure why it seems thin to me. Have had a slew of debuters lately, (insert complaint about Will never accepting one of my puzs here). 😆
Where's @Anoa Bob to gripe about the gratuitous POC WORLDFAIRS? Yikes. Although, lawyerly, the themers are three different WORLDS FAIRS, so FAIR?
UPS=United PARCEL Service
USPS=United States Postal Service
But of course, had Postal there first! Why did UPS have to take that name/initialism? Could've been WPS, Worldwide Parcel Service. Lessen the confusion.
EDSELS were flops at the time, today, they go for big money. Funny, eh? Like the Tucker. Anyone remember that? One is for sale now (I think), it's roughly $2 million. And that's Not a typo. Good stuff.
Anyway, tangents aside, nice MonPuzDebut, Michael. Just a few -ese, light dreck, easy puz. Monday complete!
Five F's (Thanks to the theme for four of 'em!)
RooMonster
DarrinV
I'm with the folks who dislike FRATTY although I'm willing to concede it may be a word, based on the expert testimony of other commentators. I'm giving the side eye to UNFREE, but it doesn't seem to bother anyone else, at least not yet. "We demand our freedom, we are unfree!" doesn't have much of a ring to it.
I went to the World's Fair in NY when I was in high school, three hour bus ride, so I was looking all over the puzzle for the Unisphere, without success. FERRISWHEEL reminded me of where that amusement made its debut, but it had to be pried loose. Also made me think of Expl '67 in Montreal, which was a little closer to home, and had lots of cool stuff.
Nice entry level puzzle, which is just what we want on a Monday. Well done, ML, and thanks.
Due to a technical glitch my 8:48 post has come up as "Unknown" -- but it's really me! I don't have the option of erasing it, so I won't clutter up the blog by repeating it under my name. I guess I'll have to remain semi-incognito today.
I dunno, the anti-FRATTY party seems a little bratty to me. FRATTY Bratties Unite!
Ooh, architecturally based PPP theme. And EDSEL appears. Coincidence?
ESPNU gave people trouble for the college sports channel? They also have one that is just sports news, mysteriously named ESPNEWS (give it a second, the mystery will be obvious when you see it). And their second ESPN channel? ESPN2. Yeah, subtle, creative, naming is not what they are about.
The symmetrical SO CALLED NICE IDEA seems like commentary. Probably on that new bottled water brand, PURE EPCOT ALPS.
My Tigers hired the post-suspension ex-ASTROS manager. I’m all for redemption and second chances, but a little Triple A penance before immediately getting one of the 30 big league gigs seems appropriate to me. Lots of qualified people not embroiled in a cheating scandal were passed over. I guess it could be argued that the Tigers are more of a Triple A club than a Major League club right now (and it could be worse, we didn’t put a dinosaur in charge of one of the most talented young clubs like the White Sox did), but that’s the second straight managerial hire that caused me to question my fandom.
@kitshef (7:26) -- Funny post about the 1964 New York WORLD'S FAIR. I was there too, and, like you, it's the only WORLD'S FAIR I've ever been to. And like you, I have a very specific memory, though it's certainly not of dinosaurs. It's of the Lady Clairol Pavilion.
I was there with my college friend Jill -- she of the flawless peaches-and-cream complexion, blue eyes, and light-brown hair. There was this contraption where you could see your face with different-colored wigs around it. There was a double-viewing aperture where you could each see each other and comment on how good you each looked as a blonde...a redhead...etc.
Jill went first. She could have been anything. She made a fabulous blonde, redhead, dark brunette, even gray hair looked great on her. (Sort of like Moira in "Schitt's Creek" now that I think of it, but there was no Moira back then.)
Then I went. It was horrible. Blonde, red, auburn and light brown were absolutely laughable, but very dark brown didn't work either. My hair was jet black and so were my eyebrows. (They still are to this day, if you want to check my xword.info photo.) Whatever color you stuck on my head, all you saw were the eyebrows!
Poor Lady Clairol. She was trying to sell hair coloring. And yet here was this college girl being convinced that she would never, ever be able to color her hair without it looking like a bad joke.
And, Dear Reader, I never have. Not even once.
A great nonfiction book about events which occurred at the 1893 Words Fair is Murder in the White City by Erik Larson. Fascinating story.
@Barbara S - That it was you was obvious. The “unknown” thing is a little worrisome because Blogger occasionally decides to pick on somebody for no discernible reason. Hopefully it was just a one-time thing.
I've been a Theta Chi since 1979 and have never heard anyone use "fratty." In or out of the brotherhood. So I'll pile on as to that one. Of course, nobody at the Times was ever a member of a Fraternity so how would they know?
@Lewis - I want to thank you for your weekly list. I had this crossword thought this morning... “this will be easy, it’s only Monday . BUT we get Lewis’s Top 5 today”. I look forward to it. Thanks
Agreed, great read, but title is “Devil in the White City”.
Funny to hear all the revulsion at the word "fratty." I was in college more than 15 years ago, and the word was already a commonplace pejorative. "Fratty" is an actual in-language term used by real humans, unlike so much antiquated garbage that regularly appears in crosswords, and which solvers only recognize because they regularly appear in crosswords. Mondays should strive to avoid as much crosswordese as possible so that they're assessable to new solvers, and this one accomplishes that quite well.
A great Monday and debut, easy for a beginner and yet not boring at all. The constructor said in his notes that the idea for this puzzle came to him while reading Devil In The White City, Eric Larson’s excellent account of the horrifyingly grisly true events on at the 1893 Chicago FAIR. EWW. Well done Michael, and congratulations on your debut! Hope to see much more from you in the future.
Big side eye to UNFREE and FRATTY but I loved ESPNU, which I discovered I have and didn’t even know it, and GADS which was my grandmother’s favorite expression. When asked what she’d been up to, she’d say “Oh I’ve just been out gadding about.” A sweet spirited lady who would have been two years old at the time the EIFFEL TOWER was introduced at the 1889 expo.
"The Devil in the White City” Erik Larson
Yeah....I also did a little stink eye action at FRATTY and wondered if they dated any of the Beta Nu sisters.
But...I liked the puzzle because of the memories. I've only been to one World's Fair and that was the Vancouver Expo. My best buddy was part of the Sacramento delegation to help run the American Pavilion. It was all about the Space Program. He was invited to all of these posh cocktail parties and dragged me with him. Well...he didn't really need to drag me. We were supposed to meet Lady Di and little Charles but they were a no-show.
I've seen all of these architectural accomplishments. The money spent to build these attractions were well worth it. If you're ever in Seattle, do visit the SPACE NEEDLE. I first visited when we had sales training session there. We all went up to the top and sat in "The Loupe" as it rotated around the night vistas of glorious Seattle.
So I'm re-dreaming the fond memories of the EIFFEL and my first impressions and then you get me to the scariest movie I ever watched. Holy little ragamuffins. You want to not be able to sleep for a month, watch "The Shining."
Speaking of sleeping....@Roo...You can always try a Mike Lindell sleep pillow.......!!! I hear they keep you from getting COVID. Better than any vaccine. Yesireebob......
I really liked this array of engineering feats that share humanity's desire to soar to the heights. I liked the complement of Mother Nature's contribution with the ALPS.
Re: EDSEL - I remember the days of old TV when the name was frequently the butt of jokes because of the failed car model, which for me somehow made the person seem like an ASS, too. But that mistake was corrected when I recently learned that EDSEL Ford was the moving FORCE and the money behind bringing Diego Rivera to Detroit in the early 1930s to paint the Detroit Industry murals in the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Enjoyed seeing the signatures of the three world's fairs. I went to the one on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay in 1939. My parents took me there several times. I was five and and like most kids that age my most vivid memory is of what I ate there. They had something called scones, fat pastries full of raspberry jelly. I had one every time we went.
We saw a movie on Hulu a couple of nights ago set a Binghamton University, where Rex teaches. The Rewrite, 2014. Hugh Grant plays a screenwriter who once had a hit movie but now is forced to teach screenwriting at this university. It was a flop. I don't think that it was ever released to theaters in the US. But we enjoyed it. Lots of good actors -- Grant, Marisa Tomei, J K Simmons, Allison Janney, and a witty script.
Crossing ET TU with BRUTE was a nice touch.
@EdFromHackensack -- Thank you! Made me feel good!
Nice writeup, August. I noticed all those EEs, too, so I poked around and saw multitudinous doubles - I think 19, including our friend FRATTY, and six of the 3-letter entries. All the themers have at least one set, with two in FERRIS WHEEL, and the plural WORLD’S FAIRS winking at them all.
I liked not only the theme, but also got a smile out of some of the clues, like “inelegant problem-solving technique” and “wake others up while you sleep.”
EPCOT right in the middle was a nice bonus. I checked and EPCOT has attractions which resemble the SPACE NEEDLE and the EIFFEL TOWER, and originally there was an amusement park with a FERRIS WHEEL.
NICE IDEA, Mr. Lieberman!
Why no love for the Unisphere in Queens ? It is The NEW YORK Times after all.😂
I think that the more you disliked FRATTY is simply a proxy for old you are (read: "out of the loop").
if memory, and facts, serve the most notable aspect of the St. Louis fair was the ice cream cone.
From my perspective the Space Needle stands as one of the quintessential Jetson-style structures of the early 60s. It's from the optimistic age when we were promised flying cars - and ended up getting pandemics and bedbugs.
It's a bit surprising to see that world's fairs are still happening. The latest one was supposed to start last October in the UAE but was postponed for a year. The United Stated pavilion theme is "Mobility," which turns out to be ironic.
Amen
Agreed
In the center of the grid sits EPCOT, which, in its original incarnation as EPCOT Center in 1982, was considered to be a type of permanent world's fair. It had the look of recent fairs (especially ones in the US), with company-sponsored pavilions looking towards the near future, and country-sponsored pavilions providing a glimpse of their cultures.
That vision fell apart after the millennium celebration 21 years ago, for a variety of reasons.
Corporate sponsorships started to expire, and weren't being renewed, as their sponsors decided their marketing dollars could be more effectively spent elsewhere. Disney decided keeping up with the future was too expensive without sponsors, so they have abandoned that vision for the Future World portion of the park.
The World Showcase portion of the park has room for an additional 8 pavilions, but no new pavilions have been added since 1988. It's not clear whether this is due to lack of interest of various country's to help sponsor the construction of a pavilion, or if Disney is just not interested in expansion of this part of the park.
When EPCOT Center first opened, there were no tie-ins to existing Disney films, TV shows or characters. All attractions and exhibits were original with no tie to existing Disney properties. That slowly changed, as familiar theme park characters were added to some shows and parades. But in the last 10 or 15 years, with a change in management, Disney started to transform some attractions in the park to reflect their in-house intellectual property. Now it seems any new attraction or renovation must have some tie to a Disney property.
The park is in the middle of an overhaul and re-theming effort. The pandemic has slowed that effort, but the park is no longer as clearly identified as a type of world's fair park.
My father remembers his family driving up from Portland to see the Space Needle during the World’s Fair. My paternal great-great grandfather wrote in his diary about seeing the Eiffel Tower during the Exposition Universelle with his newborn son (my great-grandfather). My maternal great-great grandfather was a young engineer in Chicago during the World’s Columbian Exposition. I am sure he must’ve gone to see the Chicago Wheel.
Easy Monday with some fun history!
Easy and fun Monday grid. New most hated word of all time: fratty😬
I had never heard or seen the word FRATTY but it is in a recognizable category: words used to classify people so we needn’t bother learning more about them. Same genre as “preppy”, “jock”, “Valley girl” (not sure Valley girl is still in use), nerd and many others.
I went to NY worlds fair in 1964 - first time I had a beer legally in public (because drinking age in NY then was 18, whereas in the state I grew up in and the state in which I was then in college , the legal age was 21.) It was Lowenbrau (spelled with umlauts I don’t know how to put in.) What I remember best was seeing Michaelangelo’s Pieta.
Re 20A ET TU. *Et* means "and" and *tu* means you. But Latin is a language with a small vocabulary where the location of words has so much importance. The *et* right at the beginning of *et tu, Brute* has a very strong force, and a translator should, I think, reinforce "and" somehow, perhaps as "even you, Brutus?" or "and you as well, Brutus?"
Re 5D, ST. PAUL. If we are so woke that we have to cleanse our schools of the names Washington and Jefferson, then we should go the whole nine yards and get rid of St. Paul. He approved slavery and encouraged escaped slaves to return to their masters. He very likely owned slaves: the secretary or amanuensis mentioned in his New Testament letters was probably a slave. States named after English monarchs need to be renamed: Georgia, N. and S. Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, and probably others that I don't recognize. Cities named after these monarchs, and after French ones as well, have to go.
Barbara (8:48 and 9:12), interesting that some force is making you "unknown." I always enjoy your posts. I tried emailing yesterday and cc'ed the letter to myself to make sure it arrived. My copy did not arrive, and I assume yours did not as well. I try again soon with a different format.
Anon. i.e. Poggius
Very easy, but FRATTY wasn’t a thing at Theta Chi.
My 8 year old granddaughter’s current favorite joke:
What’s brown and sticky?
One of the more arresting (pun not intended) episodes of "Law&Order: CI) ends at the Unisphere. More than a little au courant, in that the core of the plot is 'the other as enemy', a plot The Orange Sh!tgibbon (not my coinage, but I cleave) holds dear to his heart; episode title, of course, is "World's Fair". Not as much fun as the ending of "MIB", though.
Anonymous said...
Why no love for the Unisphere in Queens ? It is The NEW YORK Times after all.😂
Quiz Show 1994 said...
Stempel is an underdog. You know, people root for that. It's a New York thing.
Martin Rittenhome : Queens is not New York!
@Southside Johnny (6:39) Re “gads about.” As I mentioned in my earlier post, that was my grandmother’s favorite expression. I still say it every now and then because of her, but I’d say it is pretty much old-school.
@Roo (8:50) Not surprised at the price of that Tucker, out of only 51 of them ever built. Saw a movie about it years ago, an interesting story. According to Wikipedia, the director Francis Ford Coppola has one on display at his winery.
@Barbara (9:12) I noticed the quotation on that earlier post and wondered who is this Unknown person who is trying to steal @Barb’s thunder. 😄
@Nancy (9:17) Great WORLDS FAIR story. I remember those early Lady Clairol commercials: “Only her hairdresser knows for sure.”
@Lewis (10:11) Ditto what @Ed said. It amazes me how often I agree with you - and even moreso - how many times I read the clue from a puzzle I just did last week but can’t remember what the answer was. [s*i*g*h]
Hand up for the 64 in NY (remember that IBM exhibit with the giant multiple screens showing a high school football play from multiple viewpoints. Something about the future of computers) and 67 in Montreal (remember the giant photographs and the "people-friendly inexpensive" modular housing exhibit. I went with a future architect).
I have no memory of hearing or seeing FRATTY. I'm not saying it doesn't exist. Are some college brothers not FRATTY? What's the difference? I did know a guy who had no interest in athletics or drinking. A geek and anti-war activist, neither of which were very popular with the Greek crowd at the time. He called them fratholes.
Nice theme. Easy puzzle.
@Unknown (10:26) -- Ageism -- the bias you display in your comment -- is surely the dumbest and most clueless of all the isms. As my father said to me when I was quite young and must have made some sort of disparaging remark about an older person (I have no memory of what it was): "I never want to hear you say something like that again, Nancy. You'll be old and gray yourself someday." I was meant to never forget it...and I never have.
And so I say the same thing to you, @Unknown (10:26). I also remind you that being younger than certain other people is hardly an accomplishment. There are a great many other people who are younger than you, after all. Should they be flaunting it? All they've done is to be born later -- something they really had nothing to do with.
As far as being "old and gray yourself someday," @Unknown, if you're lucky you will be. But what with climate change, emerging pandemics, cyberterrorism and nuclear proliferation, you can't really be sure, can you? Those of us who didn't know FRATTY have, according to your formula, already gotten there. Consider us the lucky ones.
Have to say I'm finding the comments defending FRATTY to be very fratty.
It was the summer of 1962 and I'd just graduated from high school. My parents loaded us five kids into our 1959 Ford Country Squire station wagon and we headed out from Albuquerque to Seattle for the World's Fair. My first trip anywhere. Las Vegas (I still remember eyeing enviously the casinos that I was forbidden by age to enter). Boulder Dam (it'll never be "Hoover" to me). The Oregon coast (My younger brother, a precocious, accomplished artist, later painted a seascape of the surf rolling in through the fog, a painting that now hangs in our home some sixty yers later). The SPACE NEEDLE (scary, yet magical). A bonding experience with parents and siblings. Good times in an innocent age.
Not at all bothered by FRATTY. It appears frequently on College Confidential, often with negative connotations. Here's an example: Colby the FRATTY school without real frats
At my fraternity at FSU in 1960-61, same school year as the original animal house memoir from Dartmouth, we were cautioned never to use the term “frat.” My best of several trips to the Eiffel Tower was a family dinner in the restaurant to celebrate our 50th Anniversary. We took a cruise from Fort Lauderdale to Seattle once, and stayed a few nights at the terminus. We went up into the Space Needle on the only clear day of the visit.
Having lived in both Seattle and Chicago, I found this puzzle smack in the center of my wheelhouse—finished just 5 seconds short of Monday PB time (still over 6 minutes on the NYT app).
The SPACE NEEDLE remains a much visited Seattle attraction, with a popular restaurant at the top, and the EIFFEL TOWER is, well, the Eiffel Tower. Sadly the original FERRIS WHEEL, which was intended to and largely did “out-Eiffel Eiffel”, and which stood only about a mile from my long-time Chicago home, was dismantled soon after the 1893 exposition ended. It was subsequently reassembled at different sites, and finally demolished in 1906. This article tells its story nicely.
@Roo, it sounds like you sleep on your side (as do I) and I suspect that there is no perfect pillow for that BUT I have found that hugging a big fat king pillow allows you to sleep slightly “forward” in the side position which takes pressure off your arm and shoulder.
So I guess I should weigh in on the puzzle. Of course I liked it because I worked in close to record time...it might have been record time but as I was doing the acrosses in NW I saw BRUT coming down and stupidly put an A in, thinking it would be BRUTAL. At the end, when I didn’t get the Congrats I had to look through and finally saw I had BRUTAFORCE and ANSUE. Harumph!
If OFL had done this one, he would have pointed out that there were only three themers, and one was unlike the other two. The Space Needle is still there, and like everyone who has spent time in Seattle since, I've been up it. The Eiffel Tower still exists, and like every tourist, I have ascended it. But the original Ferris Wheel, so far as I know, was torn down -- though like maybe a majority of Americans, I have ridden Ferris Wheels at a county fair or amusement park.
What gets me is the discussion of the NY World's Fair of 64-65. I know I must have gone, because I have a memory of being in a couple of corporate pavilions. But that is *all* I can remember. I was in New York in 1958 with my mother, and on a day trip from Philly in the spring of 1963. Also in the summer of 1966. But for the life of me, I can't remember why I would have gone to New York when the fair was open, nor with whom I went. And I did not go to any other Worlds Fair ever, so where else would I have seen corporate pavilions?
I do wish the constructor had managed to sneak in the original Worlds Fair (Exposition) in London. Its HQ was in the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, and the Palace was taken down and rebuilt in what became the Crystal Palace neighborhood of South London, though I know it only as an Underground stop. The original International Exposition was the granddaddy of all the ones that followed, and many Londoners went back several times, to marvel at its wonders.
What makes Estee Lauder laudable? Word play? That she was a success? This clue doesn't work for me. Am I missing something?
According to the Sixth Edition of The Official Scrabble Players' Dictionary:
EEW - Good
EWW - Bad
AAH - Good
AHH - Bad
FRATTY - Bad
LATEN - Good
UNFREE - Good
I understand that Webster or OED would pull rank, but the Scrabble book is usually up-to-date with modern lingo and strange sound effects. And in our nerdy family it's the law.
easy, decent monday. i too had the exact same minor inconvenience at ESPNU/UTE, but given it was about college the U was easy to guess. (we have all the sports channels so we can watch hockey, but i've never heard of ESPNU until today since we only really ever watch NESN, and ESPN/NBCSN etc as last resorts.)
i did have GOOD IDEA before NICE IDEA and also inexplicably decided to spell WORLDS FAIRS as WORLD FAIRES but those were easy enough to fix on the fly.
re: PARCEL, the UPS logo used to be a very nicely tied parcel for many years. it was a wonderful logo. then they "updated" it and now it just looks like a seal with a sad melted kraft single over the top. one of the most unfortunate rebrandings to this day, IMO.
Good MonPuz. Not a very humorous theme revealer, but FRATTY made up for it. (If U weren't a FRATTY CAT, U could go with TARGET over SNOOTY, instead of PARCEL over FRATTY, I reckon. Maybe they would've, if the STY hadn't already been taken.) But I liked FRATTY just fine.
staff weeject pick: LSU. Part of a most excellent U-rich weeject stack, to start the show rollin in the NW.
fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: {Pig's digs} = STY. With bonus rhymey clue.
primo sparkly moments: BRUTEFORCE. ALLTERRAIN. SOCALLED. EPCOT sittin in the middle, actin like it might be theme-related. STPAUL.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Lieberman dude. And congratz, on yer debut. Puz was more than FAIR.
Yo, @August the Tired. Nice blog bullets. Never been on the Eiffel Tower, but have been atop that there Space Needle.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
**gruntz**
Ditto
@600 considering they started as just two people making four products in NYC and are now a multibillion dollar, worldwide, award winning, widely recognized company, i would say that's pretty laudable. (laudable = "(of an action, idea, or goal) deserving praise and commendation.")
@SouthsideJohnny cara mia means my beloved in italian! i got this one as an addams family fan, myself ;)
I was so confused reading the review and was wondering who had replaced Rex with a person with no nasty bone! Finally got to the reveal. Oh, it’s August. But, I was surprised that his choice of Edsel as word of the day didn’t include the fact that it was a huge flop! Honestly I found this puzzle boooooring. I have been to only one World’s Fair site, Montreal - Expo67, and I’ve actually been there twice. But not in 1967 when I had just graduated high school. I live in Vancouver now - the only legacy of that Expo84 is the Sky Train, The Geodesic dome, now the Telus Science Museum, and the forest of green glass towers that ENSUED once the industrial land was cleared. I hope to see La Tour Eiffel in September (for the first time) but that depends a lot on Covid. When will that acronym finally appear in a puzzle. All of us solvers, older and younger, should be watching it. Could the clue be “disease that 45 allowed to kill 500,000?
PS - you can’t complain about CARA as a made-up word if you don’t also complain about OLES.
I got a smile of of the bratty FRATTY. It seemed perfectly descriptive of my generalization of the type.
The symmetry of ALL TERRAIN and BRUTE FORCE seems inspired. I very much dislike the very idea of ATVs - loud, smelly, dust-raising and dangerous. No thanks. (I'm not a fan of snowmobiles either though I loved them as a kid. Just an ATV without the dust.)
Michael Lieberman, I would never have picked this theme for a crossword puzzle but it works nicely. Congratulations on the debut.
Thanks, August, for the review. I was dreading what Rex might have to say about this puzzle.
@kfja this is one of my favorite jokes as well, at 37 and some years before. so allow me to answer: A STICK.
:D
Thank you @August for your delightful writeup. Always enjoy your takes. Found the snail vid relaxing. 😊
Don't recall hearing "fratty", but seems to be a thing; no prob.
@Lewis (8:47 AM)
Thx for the 5 things; always agree with your top 5. Good to see this group again! :)
@The well-known Unknown (8:48 AM) (Hi @Barbara S.)
Thx for the Armstrong vid. :)
@RooMonster (8:50 AM)
Along the lines of What Roo’s pillow (12:05 PM) said, I use three large feather-filled pillows, one for my head (which takes pressure off the bottom shoulder and arm), and another at the side, to rest the top arm on. The third pillow is at my back, so when I turn over, I have the same setup. Being a side sleeper, this system works like a charm for me. I also have pillows on each side that go between the knees.
I hope you're able to rectify your sleeping situation; nothing worse than a poor night's sleep or being achy upon rising.
___
"Cara" Mia ~ Jay and The Americans
pg - 16
Peace ~ Empathy ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Very Easy NYT Monday ... 24% below my 6-month Monday median solve time. This is Michael Lieberman's NYT debut. I've done six of his puzzles in the WSJ and Universal and averaged a little less than 5% above my 6-month median solve time, so I was anticipating more of a challenge here, but wound up with my 5th fastest solve time of 609 NYT Mondays.
Nothin' to it. Either the NYT puzzles have been unusually easy for the past week or I'm on a roll (or both). The only things that got any reaction out of me at all in this grid were FRATTY {66A: Like some college bros} and ASTROS {4A: Houston team}. FRATTY, because (a) is that a real word? and (b) preppiness has always kinda made my skin crawl. ASTROS, because #*@%ing cheaters!
@RooMonster: In my earlier comment I forgot to address your pillow question. I used to wake up most mornings with a headache or stiff neck from bad pillows. I finally invested in a down filled one and it was life changing. Oh my goodness, what a relief. What I love is that it molds itself to you by squishing around your head and neck so that you have support no matter what position you lie in. Real down filled pillows are pricey but you can test out my theory by first trying a good quality “down alternative” one which would be about half the cost. Only drawback is some of the lower-priced ones tend to start shedding feathers after they’ve been used for a while. Also . . .
I second the suggestion by @Roo’s pillow (12:05) for side sleepers to try hugging a long king-size pillow. It does indeed take the pressure off the shoulders, arms and hips plus it helps a lot if you have any sciatic nerve issues. Good luck!
@Richard (11:28) What a heartfelt story! And you told it so thoughtfully. I can just see that Country Squire with the woodgrain trim along the side panels and feel the spray of the surf coming thru the fog. So touching that you still have your brother’s painting to this day. Those are memories that are forever etched in our minds. Thank you for sharing.
And thanks to everyone else who shared their WORLDS FAIR stories. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading each and every one of them.
Speaking of pillows, have you noticed that when Mike Lindel (sp.?) sells his pillows, he makes a big fuss over the fact that they are made "right here in the USA," showing pictures of his factory in Minnesota. (I wonder about "machine washable" pillows--what's in them, spun polyester of shredded old plastic bottles?) Then when he tries to sell his sheets, he makes another fuss over their cotton being the best in the world, from Egypt! Thus in deep sleep, dreaming patriotic dreams in our heads, our bodies are somewhere in the Middle East.
My Poggius (*Facetiae*, ca. 1450) told as a true story of a preacher in a small town near Naples, who was inveighing against the sin of sexual lust. He said that in certain cities in Italy couples are so addicted to lust that they used pillows during sexual intercourse. Then the preacher placed pillows on the pavement to show how they did it. Poggio concluded the story: no one in the congregation had heard of the practice, and they immediately left the sermon to go home and try it out for themselves.
Anon. i.e. Poggius
I don't remember being aware of the Seattle Worlds Fair in 1962, which is strange. I thought the Space Needle was built a few years earlier.
I do remember the 1964-65 Worlds Fair – it was a hop, skip and jump from where I lived. If it had been a few years later I would have ridden my bike there. I specifically remember:
1. The Bell Telephone pavilion
2. The Formica pavilion
These were adjacent to each other at the eastern end, and were the first two that we visited.
3. The Vatican pavilion, because every Catholic family in the five boroughs went to see the Pietà. It was illuminated in front of a dark blue backdrop.
4. The Sinclair pavilion. They had a vending machine where you could get molded dinosaur figures. I got a brown stegosaurus and a green triceratops.
5. The Ford Rotunda.
6. The General Motors pavilion.
These bookended the western edge at the north (Ford) and south (GM). Almost all the corporate pavilions had moving walkways or seat banks that you traversed through on. The Sinclair pavilion was in the same section (Science).
7. The Maryland pavilion. This was a big deal because it was the first time we ever ate crab cakes. I've no idea if they were actually any good, but I loved them at the time.
I know we checked out others. Mostly I remember just walking around the grounds. It felt fun and exciting. We went twice each year, I think. I figured out one visit had to be on May 3, 1965, because I distinctly remember coming home after being there and watching an episode of Alfred Hitchcock starring Colleen Dewhurst called "Night Fever", and that episode aired on that date.
Thank you A2Jd for pointing out the ettu/ brute crossing. Made me smile. I hadn't noticed it on my own.
Lewis, when I was doing the puzzled I wondered if the bees, bungee and label clues would be in your list, -which Ialwys enjoy.
Feeling a little dense because I don't even understand the other two, today.
Is there a word: Anti-Fratty? That was me back at UT in Austin after I pledged a fraternity. I was in it for about three weeks and hated every minute of it. Couldn't stand the "brothers" nor the hazing; brutal and sophomoric. I was in the Drama Dept. and we had night-time rehearsals which I was supposed to skip so I could be at the frat house and be hazed! What a dilemma! I was outta there.
I'm told my grandfather won a riding and roping trophy at the Chicago Fair in 1896(?) He died in 1910 and was a member of the US Indian Police in what is now Oklahoma. I have his badge. And he is the source of my Choctaw blood for which I am a proud blood- member of the Choctaw tribe. My Great Grandfather was a Presbyterian missionary to that tribe.
What I remember most was the Schaefer (Beer) Pavilion, which on the inside had an interesting enough display but outside had not only a beer garden for 300 people but a curved bar, 100 feet long, which the exhibitors claimed to be the largest, or better phrased - longest in the world. And Schaefer, of course,they had the best beer jingle of all time:
Schaefer
is the
one beer to have
when you’re having more than one.
Schaefer
pleasure
doesn’t fade even
when your thirst is done.
The most rewarding flavor
in this man’s world
for people who are having fun,
Schaefer
is the
one beer to have
when you’re having more than one!
And boy did we have more than one. And the crowning glory was that this was also the location of the brand new Mets Shea Stadium, a blessing from above for us left-over Dodger and Giants fans (and,of course, virulent Yankee haters!) My God: a new National League New York team; the world's longest bar, open before AND after the games; seemingly dozens of obscure little national pavilions, including an African one which featured a monster drink they called, if I recall the African Zombie: you were not allowed to have more than two - and the house band featured the great Babatunde Olatunji!!! No security checks, no I.D. checks - just fun, fun, fun (especially if you were an 18 year-old kid.) The Fair was the greatest thing that ever happened in New York, or the whole world for that matter - at least during my first 18 years on the planet.
Comments today really have been a trip down memory lane, especially regarding the 1964-65 NY World’s Fair, which I, too, well remember visiting with my family when I was in 9th grade. NYC seemed like a wonderland to me then, as I saw it for the first time.
If you want a nostalgic glimpse back at that era and place, check out the 1963 movie Sunday in New York, starring Jane Fonda in an ingenue role as a small-town girl who loses her innocence while visiting her GADabout older brother in the big bad city, which offers her and the viewer one delight after another. And if you want to see how that dreamscape turned into a nightmare setting in just a few years, see Jane again in 1971’s Klute, for which she won her first Oscar. Fortunately we now seem to have a more balanced version of the city, or at least can hope for one to re-emerge soon.
Sorry for my near duplicate posts earlier today. For some reason Blogger, which seems to be a bit twitchy of late, wouldn’t let me delete the first one. And I too was tickled to be shown that ET TU was crossed by BRUTE.
Well, there was a Native American exhibit at the Chicago World's Fair, along with Buffalo Bill (who crashed the party) and assorted others. Really cringey to think about now. Chicago built the White City for the fair, which I guess was pretty dazzling. The only remaining building is the Museum of Science and Industry, one of the best museums of its kind, imo.
I liked the puzzle though you can out me in the FRATTY??? column. @Nancy, I'm going to have to check out your picture; I can't believe you wouldn't be beautiful with any hair color. In my mind you look like Lauren Bacall.
@old actor actually, "fratty" is what you describe. that's why it's a bit funny to me to see some commenters talking about how they were in a frat/sorority but never heard the term, as some kind of evidence that it's not real or not very used - no one in those clubs would use such a word, and the people that do use it wouldn't likely be saying it to the face of someone in one XD
"pejorative" seems a bit too harsh a word to describe "fratty" but, generally speaking fratty is used in reference to something you don't care for because of it's frattyness.
Clearly I need a much better disguise if I'm going to fool you people. The low-slung black fedora and the dark glasses were nowhere near enough -- I'll have to work on it.
@Whatsername (11:16)
I loved your righteous indignation on my behalf! It's good to know you're ready to defend my interests.
@Anon. i.e. Poggius (10:51)
You're right -- I haven't received anything from you. We remain star-cross'd. I'll check later in case anything arrives.
@bigsteve46 3:01
Although that Shaefer Beer jingle is good, the beer itself was not. That was some nasty stuff!
Another nasty beer: Dinkel Ackel (sp?) I came home from work one day (early 90's, young, living with roommates), and saw a mini-keg of said beer sitting on the counter. Well, never heard of it before (or since), and it was the nastiest beer I'd ever tasted. Curious if anyone has ever heard of it/tried it.
RooMonster BEER ME! Guy
One more thing to like about the puzzle: all the World’s Fair stories that the theme conjured up today. Thanks to all who shared their memories! How interesting to think back on those times when we didn't have every corner of the world at our fingertips.
@Birchbark, what a fascinating story! Great question: “Why now?” Maybe we really do live and learn? Or you’ve become less attached to things in general and decided to risk it? Or maybe time isn’t really linear?
I did have a little unfinished “business” from yesterday (cue JImmy Fallon “thank you” music):
@Frantic, thanks for the streaking video - David Niven was one cool cucumber.
@Joe D, thanks for your amusingly-referenced link to the Philip Glass. Minimalist music sometimes does make me want to shoot myself, but I actually listened to the whole thing, mostly because Jennifer Koh’s playing was so impeccable and yet so nuanced. One of the chorus women seemed totally mesmerized by her, too. Keep ‘em coming!
Finally, thanks to whoever mentioned Trebek’s Jeopardy predecessor, Art Fleming, and announcer Don Pardo -hadn’t thought of them in decades. For anyone who wants a stroll down the memory lane of Jeapardy, here’s a link. Careful, Fleming is so compelling you may end up watching the entire game. Surprisingly, I knew the Final Jeopardy answer!
"Alp"horn - Amazing Grace
@jae
Good to hear that you're feeling better. :)
Finally finished Croce's Freestyle 586. What a battle, but amazingly got it!
@Joe
Got the acrostic yesterday. Nowhere near easy, but improving with each one.
___
pg - 10
Peace ~ Empathy ~ Kindness to all 🕊
I just started a lifetime government subsidy of over $1000/month today, so I am officially "out of the loop". One way I know that is that I didn't know FRATTY, though it was so easy to infer I can't understand why anyone's complaining. Marveling at its ugliness is one thing, asserting that it isn't a word is quite another. My (non frat) college days were over 40 years ago. I'm just plain pretty old.
If one looks at the ngram of FRATTY the fact that it is pretty rare is clear, as is that it has grown exponentially since 2000. So, if you stopped paying attention to what the cool kids were saying prior to 2000, you most certainly never heard FRATTY. If you did pay attention to what the cool kids were saying, you may well have heard it. Kind of being in and out of the loop. I'm out of the loop. It's just a fact.
@stephanie (3:29) - You opine that we fraternity members are not familiar with the word FRATTY because no one would use that word in our presence. How naive can you be?
Would you allege the same thing about all the other - and much worse - slurs folks use? Unfortunately, using slurs directly is all too common.
I suggest that the reason we are unfamiliar with that word is that it simply was not in the vocabulary of very many people "back in the day". And now it is.
I seem to have left out the final sentence of my first paragraph at 3:46. Here it is in context:
One more thing to like about the puzzle: all the World’s Fair stories that the theme conjured up today. Thanks to all who shared their memories! How interesting to think back on those times when we didn't have every corner of the world at our fingertips. In those days there was so much in the world that was new and strange and exotic; it must have made the early World's Fairs all the more awe-inspiring.
RE: Roo monster (3:43 PM) There are a couple of caveats regarding Schaefer beer: it was always a great draft beer, for some reason. I would get the kegs regularly for summer parties and people would comment on how good it was. Also: there was a kind of commonly held belief, at least around NYC area, a sort of beer snobbery, that local beers weren't any good and that the REALLY good beers were the national brands like Bud and Schlitz. This was a form of pathetic "beer social climbing" common in that era. In fact, our local NYC beers, especially Schafers, Rheingold and Ballantine were quite good beers but of a kind of heavier, Euro style while in this country we were already moving toward a Coors-type ultra-light - just barely beer - which came to dominate the scene. And a final note: for a number of economic reasons all the major NYC breweries shut down or moved to other locations around this time, although the bottles and cans looked the same. And one thing about NYC is we have great municipal water. A couple of the beers I remember, relocated their breweries, and seemingly overnight went from pleasant, solid brews to almost undrinkable swill because of bad water at their new locations (bad, in the sense of being bad for beer making, not Flint-Michigan bad.) Anyway, beer is one of my favorite subjects - although I don't drink much of it anymore: I grow old ... I grow old...
I have to teach an online class, so I'll come back to read all of you. @kitshef, it was 1964, that's when the fair was. I remember because I went there on the way from my summer job in Washington to my first year of grad school.
I'm slightly troubled by FERRIS WHEEL. The EIFFEL TOWER and the SPACE NEEDLE are unique objects, but there are lots of FWs. I'm guessing maybe the Chicago fair was the first one, so it's kind of OK.
Nothing against her, but "laudable" Lauder? Is the more praiseworthy than, say Harry the bandleader?
OK, later.
@Joaquin - I just reread @stephanie 3:29 and can’t find a single inaccuracy.
@Pete - That FRATTY isn’t in a lot of books is just evidence that fraternity’s faults weren’t being written about much. Animal House is a pretty searing satire about Greek life and it sort of looks like the written resurgence of the term followed soon afterward.
@tea73 - I went to a small liberal arts college and I feel like that accusation about Colby would have fit just fine. I remember learning that some comparable Michigan colleges had Greek Life and wondering why.
A quick check of the online references showed the Online Dictionary of Slang with a neutral definition and The Urban Dictionary with one befitting its reputation.
@Z (4:20) - I didn't suggest any inaccuracies in @stephanie's posting. I merely offered my opinion that her opinion was naive as regards people not using the word FRATTY in the presence of fraternity members. My opinion (based on years of experience) is that too many people use slurs too often in the presence of those they dislike, don't understand, or actually intend to hurt.
@A – I did notice the entranced chorus singer in the Glass piece. Also, the solfege-singing guy wearing glasses looked like he was stifling a giggle near the beginning. Why were they singing "wrong" solfege syllables, I wonder.
Anyway, when it comes to minimalism, I generally like Steve Reich, but I've never heard anything I liked by Philip Glass. I once met with an attorney who was interviewing candidates to run Glass's publishing concern. The first thing the attorney said to me was, "Philip really wants a middle-aged woman for this job." I can't remember if he also said "unmarried", but I gleaned that P. Glass assumed such a person would have no life and would therefore be able to give up all of her time to be at his beck and call. They never called me after that interview, and since the premise didn't sound very appealing anyway, I didn't care.
@bocamp – congratz on getting the Acrostic! Very cool! Keep doing them, they get easier as you get familiar with the little nuances.
One hint I did want to point out, though I don't think it applied to the last two Acrostics, is that words will often repeat within the quotation. I don't mean small two or three letter words, I mean a longer word that may have to do with the subject matter. So keep an eye out for longer words where you have some of the same letters in the same location.
Anybody know which pillow is best for holding over someone's face?
@Roo (3:43pm) ... We must be twin sons of different mothers. Dinkelacker! Wikipedia informs me that, "By the end of the 19th century Dinkelacker was the largest brewery in Stuttgart." Also, it's German for "field of spelt." I haven't thought of that brew in a very long time. I don't remember it being awful, but I'm quite certain that my 61-year-old self would be repulsed by a lot of the beers that my 21-year-old self preferred.
@pete (3:52pm) ... You beat me to the punch with your comment supported by the ngram of FRATTY. I find the smaller surge in use during the WWII period intriguing. I wonder what that was about?
@Joe Dipinto 4:42 PM
Thx for the tip; will do. :)
Peace ~ Empathy ~ Kindness to all 🕊
The Joker:
Dolly Parton's Shock and Awe?
****Acrostic Alert***
@JoeD, @bocamp
I found yesterday's acrostic to be a medium. It became easier when I recognized the author's name before anything else and was looking for a quote that might be a little, um, different, and sho nuff. Always satisfying when you finish up and don't know if you should fill in the entire quote or the clued answers first. Fun times.
Well, I've said before that I usually don't read Rex (or guest bloggers), the comments, or Wordplay/Xwordinfo before commenting myself, and today was no exception. Then I went to Wordplay and read that the constructor had the very same thoughts as I – including the mention of "The Devil in the White City" being the inspiration for the theme. Funny to me (especially since I'm not much of a reader) because that's exactly what I thought while solving. Not only did I read the book, I loved it, and (this is key) remembered it.
What does this prove, you might ask? That I can find just about anything of little or no consequence to talk/write about.
Agree with others who didn't care for FRATTY. Who cares that it's a real word? Sounds like a character trait of someone highly susceptible to SLOP ITCH.
I also have fond, yet vague, memories of the Worlds Fair in Queens. Any occasion I had to drive by there since and spot the Unisphere always sparked feelings of nostalgia. Wasn't there a Hall of Presidents or the like where a robotic Abe Lincoln did a talk? I do remember freaking out because I thought he had come alive. I was not a particularly bright child.
After reading of so many others' experiences from the same Worlds Fair, I wonder if I dreamed the whole thing. Great. I'm even stupid in my dreams. 😂🤣
@Smith 823am Any time anyone can get a ticket or otherwise attend a viewing of any exhibit of anything by Dale Chihuly, they should move heaven and earth to do so. I don't travel much, but luckily he came to the NY Botanical Gardens a few years back. The juxtaposition of his work with the natural beauty of the gardens was a match made in absolute heaven.
@Barbara S 912am I thought that was you! Your style is becoming unmistakable…and then there are the (beautiful) quotes, which helped. 😉
@Roo 850am If you haven't already seen it, I recommend Tucker: The Man and His Dream, (Hi, @Whatsername!) starring Jeff Bridges. It's fascinating and enraging all at the same time.
@pabloinnh 853am Ditto UNFREE! Clunky.
@kfja 1059am Toes are tapping, arms are folded…well???
Oh. Thanks, @stephanie 127pm! Never mind.
@Nancy 1123am Hear! Hear! I thought the same, but you had the guts to actually say something.
And then there's @pabloinnh 1123am – LOL!
@Richard 1128am Lovely story – thanks for sharing.
@Roo's pillow 1205pm Do you really need the "Congrats" to have a feeling of accomplishment? You did a crossword puzzle and you're a pillow!
@oconomowoc 1223pm Well, I like your post. 😁
@J-Dip 222pm Geez Loueez you have a memory! Further confirmation of my Worlds Fair dream…oh well.
@old actor 234pm Wow. Another fascinating story to enjoy here! Thank you!
@bigsteve46 301pm I remember that commercial! Love your story. My father drank Schaefer beer when I was a kid. Unlike you, he hated it. So, I asked him why he drank it if he hated it so much and he said "because we have stock in it."
@A 356pm Let me return the gratitude and thank you for the old Art Fleming Jeopardy! video. I never realized what a ham he was. My favorite part of that show was when the answer card would get stuck sideways partway up. High tech stuff! It's the little things…
The commentariat is in its finest form today!
***Apropos of Nothing Alert***
Watched the Golden Globes last night. Best part was when Tina Fey introduced Tracy Morgan as "A man just 4 awards short of an EGOT."
Good golly – I can't keep up with the comments. I gotta post this now and finish reading y'all later!
@The Joker 444pm I think I actually slapped my knee on that one! 🤣🤣 Let me know if anyone gets back to you with suggestions.
@bigsteve46
Har! I must've had it After they moved! My beer of voice was (is) Miller Genuine Draft, however, being from Pennsylvania originally, that was usurped by Yeungling. Now, that's a beer! Killian's Red is good, also.
@sanfranman
LOL. When you're young, Any beer is good a ever! And I agree with the Lightification of American beers.
Roo
A couple of additional comments:
I too was at the 1964 NY Worlds Fair with a couple of college friends the summer of my freshman year. I remember drinking beer.
@Roo - @Whatsermane is right about down pillows. Expensive but worth it. I sleep extremely well.
@bocomp - congrats on finishing Croce's # 586. I am half way through # 587 and it is a bear!
@Barbara S. 9.12 AM, I actually double checked the Unknown post because I was sure it was you. Fun to know I was right. And many thanks for the Louis Armstrong link.
@A (3:46) -- Probably "all of the above," and then some.
@Frantic:
Let me know if anyone gets back to you with suggestions.
I have. Pay attention, fur cryin out loud!! :)
Paper "Doll" ~ The Mills Brothers
@pabloinnh 5:20 PM
Had a similar experience to yours. :)
@jae 5:55 PM
Thx. On it! :)
___
pg - 5
Peace ~ Empathy ~ Kindness to all 🕊
@F-Slo – You weren't dreaming:
"Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln" is a stage show featuring an Audio-Animatronic representation of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, best known for being presented at Disneyland since 1965. It was originally showcased as the prime feature of the State of Illinois Pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair...the Audio-Animatronic Lincoln gave a speech that included excerpts from multiple speeches actually delivered by Lincoln. It ran for the entirety of both of the World's Fair's 6-month seasons, and closed on October 17, 1965.
– from Wikipedia. I don't remember attending that exhibit myself.
@Roo & @Sanfranman &BigSteve - Did somebody say beer? This book does a good job of going over US beer history from a Detroit point of view. Schaefer makes a cameo experience. I’m sure there are similar works for other big cities.
Love it! 👏
@Joaquin no, that isn't what i opine. i'll re-explain:
i merely pointed out that of the people commenting here using their membership as evidence of a term's existence or lack thereof seemed silly to me. the comments i was referring to weren't saying, as you posit, "that term wasn't around back in my day" but rather "i was in a frat and never heard that term, ergo i doubt its existence." the particular year was not a factor. or at least that's how i read them. it very well could be generational lingo! that's just not what i was addressing in my comment.
i was also commenting on the assertions that aforementioned members never themselves used the term or heard it from other members. which can simply be because people belonging to and thus enjoying frats/sororities would be unlikely to use a term that isn't in alignment with their particular likes and dislikes. i.e., one person not hearing a term from other frat members isn't evidence that a term didn't exist, it's merely evidence that those people didn't use it because why would they?
lastly, "fratty" is not a slur, and in fact i specifically said that even "pejorative" was too strong a term to describe it, so your proposed comparison is a bit of mystery to me. (and to answer your question, no, i obviously would not compare it to any slur in any way.) you wouldn't scream "fratty" out a car window, or even mutter it under your breath. IME, it's more like, say if someone asked if you were going to attend a party somewhere but you declined because it was too fratty. or left a party because it was too fratty, and that's how you explained it to your roommate when you got home early. i'm sure there are plenty of frat members aware of the term or who have overheard it, but because of the way the term is used, it's just not usually said around frat members (again IME), that's all. hope that clears things up. (sincerely not sarcastically.)
@RooMonster never heard of that beer, but my ex used to drink a beer called GAB (maybe still does if it's still around, i don't know). you (or anyone else) ever hear of that one? it was an acronym for Great American Beer. reminded me of those heinz cans of simply "beans." just sort of weirdly but humorously generic. this was in massachusetts but i don't know if it was regional or not. it was cheap and tasted like...well, like cheap beer. it got the job done i suppose, and i've had worse! ;)
Yessir, Twas yours truly who fondly recalled Art Fleming. We fraternity bros (never heard of FRATTY, seems pejorative to me) were great fans, and of Opie TAYLOR, Otis Bass and Floyd tha Barber: classic.
Fastest time ever for NYT Crossword. Easy even for a Monday.
@jberg 4:19. Not necessarily. I'm sure you know exactly when you went, but the Worlds Fair was in New York for two years, so that's not necessarily when I went. But I am leaning towards '64 as I think by '65 the family had moved from Queens to Long Island, so less likely to have gone. But can't be sure.
@bigsteve46 3:01. 3rd year of college Schaefer was always available dirt cheap locally. Hours spent playing hacky sack and drinking Schaefers. Our motto was "Schaefer is the one beer to have when you're having more than eight."
@Barabara S.
There is no mistaking your voice. Thanks for more illuminative verse.
@Crimson Devil!! Sorry, the mental note I made yesterday got lost in the gray matter. Thank you. Hope you checked out the clip.
Take heed, you youngsters - in your not so distant future someone like Crimson Devil will say something to make you think, "now there's a name I haven't heard in a long time....a long time." If you're lucky there will be something like YouTube where you can resurrect memories of your forgotten past. Don't neglect to share it with/inflict it on others.
@stephanie: "you wouldn't scream "fratty" out a car window." But would you scream "honky" out of a car window? I know someone who did. More tomorrow. Who knows, @Birchbark, maybe tomorrow's puzzle will be prescient.
It's probably way too late for anyone to pick this up but, much as I don't think of myself as really old, I am. I went to the NY World's Fair (and the Vancouver one). No one has mentioned what I thought was an astounding job of transportation, preservation and presentation. And, that is?
Michelangelo's Pieta; Transported from the Vatican and placed in a plexiglass enclosure which you viewed by standing on a slow-moving escalator; I was 13 at the time. I am not exactly a fine art connoisseur (and especially was not as a 13 year old!) but, you could not help but being awe-inspired by it. It was breathtaking in its power, majesty and beauty.
Some years later, in 1972, a crazed and unemployed Hungarian geologist who alternately asserted that he was Jesus or Michaelangelo took a hammer to the statue. The Italians, showing great humanity, IMO, took him into custody, placed him in a mental institution and then deported him. They never tried him or imprisoned him.
@Joe D - IKR, what’s with the altered solfege? Some kind of reference to special relativity? Sorry you weren’t middle-aged-woman enough for the gig, but I don’t blame you for being indifferent. Any particular Reich favorites?
@bocamp, can’t wait to listen to your alphorn link - I’ve played Amazing Grace on alphorn, but I suspect this will be a bit different.
@J-Dip 740pm Thank you! Now I have reason to hope that I'm not crazy! 😁
I like this one a lot. I agree with those recommending "Devil in the White City". Ferris was there to demonstrate a new kind of steel, in his Wheel. As I recall, Walt Disney went to the fair.
Edsel (the car) gets panned, but it was Edsel who got Ford producing B-24 bombers at one per hour. Ford built 8,685 of them. Employed 80,000 to build them. The book "The Arsenal of Democracy" by A.J. Blame is a good read for those interested in WWII. I've wondered if the U.S. could match WWII production today.
@Monty Boy:
I've wondered if the U.S. could match WWII production today.
Given that we gobbled up mountains of iron ore and coal to make all that steel, not likely.
“The second (factor) is that they could not have won if it had not been for all the material, made of steel, that we provided. This number one factor in our victory has never been written about.”
-- http://www.timberjay.com/stories/historical-obsession,16064
@A 10:40 PM
Yes, the performance is indeed unique, with a light-hearted sense fun, and yet still reverent.
@Monty Boy 11:18 PM
Got the "Devil in the White City" audiobook on hold at my local library.
___
pg -1; working on it this AM
Peace ~ Empathy ~ Kindness to all 🕊
@A that depends, is the horn broken? ;)
Decent theme. Does anyone remember that puzzle that formed an image of the Seattle SPACENEEDLE after you connected the dots? Rex hated it but I loved it.
The theme is a NICEIDEA, I guess, but there are problems...
-->Okay, so the FERRISWHEEL debuted in Chicago--but now there are thousands. Still only one of each of the other landmarks. Doesn't really fit.
-->Words/nonwords. Incredibly, somehow, UNFREE is a real word; it's a verb (!) meaning to deprive one of his freedom. It is NOT, however, an adjective as the clue suggests. Even EWW is a word.
-->FRATTY, however, is a NON-word. It may be inferable, but it "ain't" in the dictionary. Rejected.
The rest of this is passably good. Long downs are lively, and junk, other than that mentioned above, is held to a minimum. Simone BILES earns DOD not only for her gymnastic prowess but also for her courage in helping to bring abuses to light. Honorable mention to Irene CARA.
And just once, folks, if you don't mind, could we please see a clue for NOLA that involves Aaron, the Phillies pitcher who shut down the almighty Braves on opening day and perennially contends for the Cy Young? Thank you. Par.
In French the word "tour" changes meaning with "le" and "la": "la tour" is "the tower" (la tour Eiffel), and "le tour" is the tour or turn (le tour de France). So when August wrote "le tour Eiffel," he was referring to riding a bicycle once around the tower, rather than the tower itself.
OUR SLY MOOD
Me ENSUE were SOCALLED wrecks,
BRUTEFORCE WOO and SECRET SECTs.
--- OSCAR EIFFEL
OK I'm home again home again. Flight yesterday tested the bounds of social distancing. Good thing I'm vaxed up.
Good, also, to come home to a monday with reminders of wonderful places I've seen.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
Theme? NICE IDEA. FRATTY? Uh, okay.
Post a Comment