Power user of a popular review site, colloquially / TUE 4-20-21 / ADA compliant entrance feature / Awesome in surf-speak / Oblong tomatoes
Constructor: Adam Wagner
Relative difficulty: Medium (normal Tuesday)
THEME: DOG (63D: Animal you might describe by the ends of 21-, 28-, 48- and 54-Across) — a DOG might be one of the words at the ends of the themers:
Theme answers:
BEER GROWLER (21A: Brewery jug)
SUBWOOFER (28A: Largest speaker in a sound system, usually)
BOB BARKER (48A: Longtime host of "The Price Is Right")
ELITE YELPER (54A: Power user of a popular review site, colloquially)
Word of the Day: BEER GROWLER (21A) —
A growler (/ˈɡraʊlər/) is a glass, ceramic, or stainless steel bottle (or jug) used to transport draft beer. They are commonly sold at breweries and brewpubs as a means to sell take-out craft beer. Rarely, beers are bottled in growlers for retail sale. The significant growth of craft breweries and the growing popularity of home brewing has also led to an emerging market for the sale of collectible growlers. Some U.S. grocery stores, convenience stores, bars and restaurants have growler filling stations. (wikipedia)
• • •
I wanna say 'woof' ... but the puzzle wasn't nearly bad enough to warrant that. In fact, I was very much on this puzzle's side for most of the solving journey. Started out rough ("ruff!"), as crosswordese really leaps out at you in that NW corner (which is where I started), but then the puzzle seemed to right itself with JUICE BAR and especially BEER GROWLER. After I got the WOOFER / GROWLER pair, I knew what was going on and was happy to go along for the ride. I do love dogs. More dog puzzles, please. I will follow! And yet it's probably my love of dogs (as well as my love of good puzzles?) that made the last third, and especially the very end, of this puzzle so disappointing. Let's start with ELITE YELPER, which ... what is that? I know that a YELPER is someone who uses Yelp! but as someone who absolutely does not use Yelp! (or read random online user comments about anything at any time), I was unaware of the caste hierarchy within the Yelping community. Had no idea one could rise to such prestigious heights, above the riff-raff, past the velvet rope and into the VIP room to join the anointed: The Yelping Elite. What an honor, I'm sure. But LOL if you think I'm tuned into your weird app-based social hierarchies. That answer: grimace! It would've been tolerable had YELPER made annnnnny sense as a final themer, but in fact it's the one that doesn't fit the pattern, the worst of the lot by far. Yelping is not particularly evocative of dogs. If it was, it probably wouldn't be the name of the (human) restaurant app, probably. Dogs yip and yap for sure, but they only yelp if you are hurting them, Why Are You Hurting Them!? Allow me to introduce you to the work of legendary cartoonist Gary PANTER. OK, maybe he's not household name-ish enough for a Tuesday themer, but ... Dogs definitely pant. Panting is a noise dogs make with their faces, so why not? Anyway, "Yelp" is not doggish, and ELITE YELPER, though it's definitely current and original, is just sad. Lastly, DOG. What a limp, anticlimactic revealer. That's it? Just DOG. Yeah, I knew it was DOG-themed back at WOOFER. So: love the theme concept, and those first three answers are just fine, but the last one, and then the revealer ... dogs deserve better.
Can't decide if AW, RATS! and OH, GEEZ! is too much or too little. Maybe OY VEY! completes the exclamatory triad. I think the general colloquialness of the grid is good. It's always dangerous to get over-enamored of JZXness (i.e. high-value Scrabble letters), and this grid's definitely got a yen, but it keeps things under control. I did write in AW, GEEZ! before OH, GEEZ! just because it sounds better to my ears (and I'm fairly certain it's been AW, GEEZ! in the grid before). I also wrote in GAZA before GIZA (my extreme bad!) (6A: Egypt's pyramids of ___) and OTROS before OTRAS, which remains (with ESTA/O) one of my least favorite solving dilemmas. Tiny, but so is a pebble in your shoe, and you know how pleasant that is. You have to go to the cross to know if it's O or A, and today the cross was ... a laugh syllable (another of my least favorite solving experiences). I would say ["Funny!"] is HA!, not HAH! I don't even know what HAH! is. I had OTROS / LOL here at first. I was happy then. Then I realized it was HAH. Then I probably thought "aw, geez!" But I survived. The rest was pretty much a BREEZE. Uneven, perhaps, but enjoyable. Cluing was so much better today. Snappy, current, playful. Makes a big difference. I was mad yesterday *for a reason*. Cheers.
When you’re in love, anything that reminds you of who you love kindles your heart. I’ve been gushingly in love with my dog Chester for almost ten years now (Thursday is his birthday), so yes, this puzzle drew joy.
Not only its cute theme – and a tight one too, as it focuses only on dog vocalizations – but then there was that backward SIT (which Chester does so adorably), plus RUB (as in belly), TAKE HOME (which had to be done after love at first sight), SHOW (as in “show dog”, which Chester would never deign to be), and BOND, which must be plain by now, has overwhelmingly occurred.
Mwah to you, Adam, for pushing my Chester button, and congratulations on your debut!
Just letting you know that I will be off for about two weeks, taking a road trip to visit some family. I will try to sneak in the Monday “favorite clues”. Wishing everyone well!
An agent is a ten-percenter, not a fifteen-percenter, at least in the entertainment industry, where most people have agents. Managers can get 15 percent, but agents are legally limited to ten. Which is why, the Merriam-Webster dictionary, “ten-percenter” appears defined as “actor’s agent”, while “fifteen-percenter” appears nowhere. Because it isn’t a thing.
Favorite moment of the solve was deciding that the better answer for “Have _____ (be well connected)” was A. NIN.
BOB BARKER. HAH! Fully expecting Wink Martindale to appear tomorrow, now.
HA is the laugh syllable. HAH is more like “in your face.” Just me?
YELP* is a funny app. First thing one has to do is weed through all the service based reviews. My rule of thumb is that a complaint about the service is most likely more about the reviewer than the service, but if it really was the service that problem is probably fixed by now. Then you need to make sure you read several reviews of the food. That’s because many people are like my mother-in-law, everything is “the best.” The local Chinese takeout is serviceable but is about what you’d expect for a takeout place in a strip mall in small town America. YELP* has reviews from New Yorkers claiming it serves the best Chinese they have ever had. Maybe they were just really hungry after a long drive. In short, I do occasionally use YELP*, especially when traveling, but I take the reviews with many grains of salt.
As soon as I finished the puzzle, I Googled “ELITEYELPER” to see if it was a thing. This article is a pretty funny/interesting look at one such Yelper’s sense of responsibility involving reviews: LINK.
I grew-up with a Sheltie. She was a biiiiiiig fan of yapping. i.e. non-stop yapping. Like all day, all night, yapping. FLAPYERYAPPER?
Food reviews on Yelp and elsewhere are only helpful if the reviewer can offer some context for their perspective. Ditto for recipes online. With recipes, I often find the name of the website or the description of the recipe revealing enough to make me pass on it. E.g., my Google feed brought up a recipe for pasta e fagioli. It omitted the e which, well, okay. It touted the recipe as 'better than Olive Garden! '. Umm, okay.
OMG, what is up with Rex today ? It looks like he took one of his generic “This puzzle stinks, I hate this puzzle reviews” and just rewrote it in a pleasant cheerful voice, lol. It’s like a Twilight Zone column. He stated how much he liked the puzzle and then went on to praise everything that he pretty much tears to shreds on a daily basis. Seriously, in one paragraph he manages to sing the praises of the likes of AW RATS, OH GEEZ, OY VEY, GIZA and OTRAS. Even the requisite rant (about YELPER) is mild by comparison.
As for me, I’ve never been (and doubt I ever will be) a fan of things like PRAM crossing YESM, both of which I consider to be utter nonsense. However, I also understand that some people may feel the same way about OTT crossing ELS, for example. So I guess it is true that “for taste there is no argument “.
@Conrad - I feel like BEER is in the answer purely to make the answer symmetrical. An Adjective of Convenience, as it were. As far as I know there’s only one kind of GROWLER, although I suppose a Mead GROWLER could be a thing.
@Jim - The answer is AN IN as in if one “has AN IN” they are well connected.
@Oren - My first thought was “15%? You need a better AGENT.”
Love a good DOG theme but this wasn’t developed enough for me. Flat revealer and weak themers. I like AW RATS and OH GEEZ and HOMBRE. A lot of the remaining fill was just rough and uninteresting.
BEER is a little redundant - but I can understand it’s use. I still have two my grandfather used i guess in the 40s. He was an Irish immigrant who worked his factory shift and stopped at the local tavern every day to fill up his bucket as he called it. More like a galvanized metal jar than the glass jugs we see today - it served the purpose for him.
Any theme that has to do with dogs is okay by me. Sneaky.
Another fine debut with a Tuesdee's Tuesdee. Just enough chew to lend interest to the seasoned solver, but entirely doable for newer folks.
I had a little trouble with the NE because I don't do WandaVision, OHGEEZ could have been many things, and at the risk of causing any kind of T.I.A. for the beer lovers on here, BEERGROWLER was only obvious when the theme became clear.
Other than that, I had PAAR, PAR, and HAr going across the middle because why not? Of course, eventually, IrEARD my dopey head and saw the error of my ways.
Congratulations, Mr. Wagner, on your first of what I hope will be many NYTXWs to come!
I also don't pay much attention to the hierarchy of reviewers on Amazon or Yelp! or whatever. But I'm very aware that this community has a handful of people who could be described as "elite Rexers."
The stuff about ELITE YELPER was genuinely funny. But doesn't Rex know by now that people need their stinkin' badges? The upvotes, the badges, all the wonderful perks that go with them.
BEER GROWLER! That's new to me. What a funny term for it; I wonder where it comes from. Wikipedia reports, "It is claimed the sound that the carbon dioxide made when it escaped from the lid as the beer sloshed around sounded like a growl." Looking at photos, I see immediately why they're popular.
Very straightforward and Tuesdayish. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing to get excited about either. Do the puzzle and then get on with the day, I s'pose.
I now feel I was prescient yesterday: I mentioned BOB BARKER in relation to THE PRICE IS RIGHT, and yesterday’s quotation was, at least in part, about a dog. BEER GROWLER and ELITE YELPER are completely new terms for me. (And GROWLER without the BEER would have been equally opaque.) I thought the theme was fine, but there is some validity in Rex’s point about YELPER. Some DOG BARKing, though, does sound like YELPing, in my view. Today we got OLGA as an anagram -- I bet Chekov is miffed. I liked PAAR beside PAR. And the general chattiness of the fill: AW RATS, OH GEEZ, OY VEY, and also HAH, PSST, YESM, I HEARD. Words I liked: ELIXIR, BREEZE, ZINGER, RITZY, AURORA, GNARLY, ROSETTA. (Amidst all those Xs and Zs, you’d have thought Adam could have come up with a Q for the pangram.) I also liked BUM near RUDE and, at the risk of offending canines and their owners, ODORS crossing DOG.
Today there’s a passage by REBECCA MAKKAI, born Apr. 20, 1978.
“I refused to have bookshelves, horrified that I'd feel compelled to organise the books in some regimented system - Dewey or alphabetical or worse - and so the books lived in stacks, some as tall as me, in the most subjective order I could invent. Thus Nabokov lived between Gogol and Hemingway, cradled between the Old World and the New; Willa Cather and Theodore Dreiser and Thomas Hardy were stacked together not for their chronological proximity but because they all reminded me in some way of dryness (though in Dreiser's case I think I was focused mainly on his name). George Eliot and Jane Austen shared a stack with Thackeray because all I had of his was Vanity Fair, and I thought that Becky Sharp would do best in the presence of ladies (and deep down I worried that if I put her next to David Copperfield, she might seduce him).” (From The Borrower)
I wondered if Rex would make BEER GROWLER his word of the day...and he did. What an odd term for a jug. I never heard of it and must say that I looked suspiciously at the answer before reluctantly writing it in.
When I already had GROWLER, WOOFER and BARKER and hadn't yet looked at the rest of the clues, I wondered what was left. Aha -- must be YELPER, I thought. How would Adam get there? Well, it seems as though there's such a person as an ELITE YELPER. Is that anything like an "influencer"? Can I get to be one? I mean I'm not all that HIP, but I can write the occasional ZINGER. And I'd promise not to be RUDE -- unless, of course, you wanted me to be.
An enjoyable Tuesday with very little junk and requiring some thinking. The thing that struck me most about the puzzle, though, is that there seemed to be an awful lot of "B"s.
Hey All ! @Anons asking about 15A - Clue is - Have ___ (be well connected)
No YELPing here, rating site or dogs. Not a pet person. Yes, we exist! Don't bother with rating things, because people are so fickle, any perceived slight, regardless if it isn't intentional or not, will get a bad review. There's a radio commercial I HEARD that goes something like, "They gave me a friend's and family discount. Hello, I'm not your friend" (said sarcastically.)
Anyway, puz was nice. Theme helped me not get my one-letter DNF at OhVEY/hELPER. Glitchy memory would've left OhVEY in if not seeing YELPER was more apt for a DOG puz. OY VEY! 😁
Still looking for the Q. Maybe could've put it in at FAd? FAQ. But then 36A would be a Seven ending in Q, resulting in new fill pretty much everywhere. So, nevermind!
Pretty nice fill. Some fun clues. Neat seeing ZINGER and GNARLY. Do surfers still say GNARLY? Doesn't seem the HIP FAD it once was.
@bocamp Thanks for getting me to the Q🐝 so often! I don't know how you do it! I believe I'm getting worse at it each passing day. Aren't you supposed to get better as you know more words? Or maybe the ole brain is just maxxed out!
Worthless review as always. I really wonder what exactly in NW corner seemed like crosswordese to you.
While I may prefer to live in a world where an underground comic artist (albeit one who has done work for major musicians / TV shows) were well known enough to be a reasonable CW clue, I think we both know we live on Earth. Yelp is nearly as worthless a website as rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com, but it is very well known, even if you are only able to get half the clue.
Also, what is your aversion to negativity in clues? When a dog yelps, they are generally in physical or emotional distress. You say Yelping is not evocative of dogs, then say that dogs only Yelp if you are hurting them. They also yelp when nervous, or for other reasons. The theme wasn't 'good things dogs do when they're happy.'
It seems your ideal crossword would be all answers that you get right away, but that other people struggle with, to remind you that you're smart. I wonder have you considered ghost-submitting to the NYT?
Mondayish here I usually get tripped up a bit on Tuesdays, but nothing but smooth sailing for me. I quit drinking before BEERGROWLERs became a thing, but I won one in a running race, It stayed in the fridge until we moved and then went into the trash with all of my other awards and racing bibs. I had a display room, but that’s not something that you move.
Gary Panter?? As goofy a thing as it is, I'll take ELITEYELPER over that any day of the week.
Hand way up for the 15% AGENT. Because usually "it's me", my first thought was "when did that happen?"
@Lewis 643am Chester ❤️ sounds like a name for the perfect dog. Enjoy your trip and safe travels. You're gonna be missed big time.
@Z 652am In written communication, I've used both HA and HAH to express laughter/delight, but most often it has been the former. Only HAH is used as a "take that!" interjection. But I could be sued into changing that if anyone really cared to waste the court's time/money to do so.
Funny thing about YELP and its influence, real or perceived - I know of someone who was "bought off" in order to not post a negative review, so the business could keep a high rating.
Blew threw this for a record Tuesday time and really enjoyed it. Some really fun and up-to-date stuff here: JUICE BAR, BEER GROWLER, ELITE YELPER, etc.(although including "beer" with GROWLER is a stretch). Also loved the BOB BARKER double-whammy--if you recall, his big PSA topic was to get your dog spayed or neutered. Only dud here was the revealer which ideally would have been MAN'S BEST FRIEND!
@Z : IMHO Yelp is for people who travel and need to eat, TripAdvisor is for people who travel and like to eat, and CHOWHOUND is for people who just love to eat - even in their hometowns.
Strictly speaking, Jack PAAR wasn't any kind of late night pioneer. That would be Steve Allen, who established 'The Tonight Show' (which was created as the bookend to 'The Today Show'). Allen was a comic, at least in that context, but PAAR was the antecedent Cavett. PAAR did emphasize odd personality chatter, that I'll give.
And, is PAAR then PAR bending the rules, or just cute?
A new Tuesday PR for me, as well. I found this easier than yesterday's. For whatever reason, my Monday came in a little slower than average this week. Just wasn't on the same wavelength.
@Nancy - GROWLERs you might not know if you're not really a brew pub visiting type of person. I feel like they started becoming popular about fifteen to twenty years ago, but they're easy to miss if you don't go to those types of places. I've never seen one at a grocery store or a gas station as Rex's article mentions -- I'm sure they exist, but I see them at brewery tap rooms and brew pubs.
@Z - HA vs HAH. Either can be the laugh syllable for me. Looking through my texts, I'm likely to get a "hah" as much as an "lol" for humorous content. "Ha" seems to be a little more popular than "hah" with my cohort, but either is used. Context, of course, can make it to mean more "in your face" as you interpret it.
As for YELP, I kind of have a tolerate/hate relationship with it, more towards the hate side, but it does sometimes prove useful to me. You just have to develop a sense for how to use it, how to skim reviews and quickly figure out who actually seems like a reasonable reviewer, and: who has an axe to grind, who has no understanding of the type of food they're eating, who reviews only because they love the sound of their words, who has unrealistic expectations, who thinks they're being clever and funny but aren't, etc. So, it's a chore. But you learn to spot the types pretty quickly.
Thought Price is right yesterday and Bob Barker today interesting. Why not do a PIR themed puzzle? Only catch for me was UAE. I had UER first. Otherwise I really enjoyed it
Dogs are the best. Only thing obviously missin from the puz was a themer endin in -LICKER. Cuz somethin endin in -BELLYRUBNEEDY would be too hard to pull off.
staff weeject pick: DOG. Runt revealer. Like. Wanted HAR instead of HAH.
OK … M&A is callin runt-roll on ROMAS. Better ROMAS clue: {Preceded by a runt-roll from below: Stuff similar to 62-Across}. Consider this a complimentary runtpuz tutorial, if U don't mess with em much.
@Birchbark: Primo better AARP clue.
barkin sparklers: JUICEBAR. ELIXIR. OHGEEZ. ROSETTA. And A-ROMAS + ODORS, of course.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. WAGner. (Apt theme selection, dude.) And congratz on yer fine debut.
Anyone who lives within 30 miles of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island knows that there is type of growler other than for beer. The Boeing EA-18G Growlers are electronic warfare aircraft stationed there. Many conversations in Port Townsend start with a line like “could you believe the Growlers last night.” There is a good bit of negative rabble-rousing about the Growlers, but I find their soft, low growl to be pleasant, like a distant thunderstorm.
I solved the puzzle las night and 15A clue was complete. I looked just now and it isn’t. Passing strange.
DOGs are pretty much my favorite things in the world so I loved this theme. EVER SO easy but I got tripped up in the NE not knowing SNIP about Outkast or WandaVision or surfing and just had tunnel vision there, couldn’t see the whole PIC. But despite that I thought this was a HIP debut. Congratulations to Adam, on both the puzzle and the new baby.
OY VEY might be something I’d say if I was ever forced to hear Taylor Swift sing her TIS song, or anything else for that matter. On the other hand, if someone told me they were an ELITE YELPER, I’d probably react with OH GEEZ and a huge eye roll. Sounds like something akin to an “influencer” which always makes me HAH out loud.
There are some hysterical restaurant reviews on Yelp from late February - early March 2020 in NYC where the writers complained about the food being utterly tasteless & the restaurants being very empty . . . . .
@Birchbark 913am Literally laughed out loud. Sick.
@J-Dip 1002am Thanks for Olive and Mabel - love them! Don't worry, I deftly avoided the usually inevitable time-suck there.`😉
@Zachary German 854pm Far be it from me to defend Rex, but I'm curious. Why do you read him if you hate it so much? Inquiring minds and all that. And just for the record, I hope he never stops blogging.
@anonymous Jim and others: I use the iPad app and it also only showed (be when I was in “across” mode. Oddly, the entire clue appeared when I was in “down” mode in that vicinity.
@Zachary German - Or, you know, just don’t read Rex. It is not required. There’s WordPlay, Crossword Fiend, and xwordinfo.
@Tim Arthur - And I assume you genuflect as you read the ELITE Rexers.
@Hungry Mother - You think you have Trophy problems... Starting about the 3:19 mark, this got a lot of attention from sports media when it first appeared.
HA v HAH - Having seen others comment I think I too use HA and HAH interchangeably to mean “funny ha-ha,” but only HAH for the “in your face” meaning.
@mbr - I don’t see any great difference between YELP* and TripAdvisor, but I have rarely used TripAdvisor so I don’t really know. I haven’t even heard of ChowHound. @RichardStanford - Using the 2-4 ratings makes a lot of sense.
@Jmorgie - “Yikes” could be used to replace “woe-is-me” in English.
Regarding 15A - I just checked PuzzAzz and the NYT App and both have the full clue. It is possible, of course, that they fixed an earlier bug since people first downloaded the puzzle.
I thought it was delightful, with such a creative discovery of DOG sounds a varied array - a vessel to TAKE HOME BEER, piece of stereo equipment, a TV host, and Internet jargon. Lots of other pleasures, too - my favorites were in the I HEARD category: AW RATS, OH GEEZ, PSST, OY VEY, HAH, YES'M. The constructor unknowingly also worked in the fact that the DOG is my bete noire, as a consequence of my once being set upon by a German shepherd, thus: I RAN.
Peter P 10:32 - Reading your comment on GROWLERs and brew pubs, I recalled my astonishment at hearing recently from my my semi-HIP, big-city-dwelling son that he'd gone to one to fill his GROWLER. I hadn't heard the term since childhood, when my dad would go to an ordinary small-town tavern to "rush the GROWLER." I'd had no idea they still existed.
BOB BARKER attended high school and college in Springfield, Missouri and got his career start at KTTS Radio which is one of the oldest FM stations still on the air. He’s revered thereabouts for his philanthropic efforts in animal rights.
@ Lewis (6:47) Good trip, safe travels.
@Flying Pediatrician (8:16) HAH! That link is hilarious and spot on too. I had a friend who owned a bar/restaurant which would definitely fall in the category of local dive but was popular for its cold BEER and great food. I helped out for a short time and was shocked at the RUDE behavior I encountered. I remember one guy in particular who sat down at a booth between the juke box and the pool tables and demanded a wine list. It took every bit of self control I had to keep from laughing in his smug face. That was long before YELP, but I have no doubt that by now he’s one of those miserable entitled jerks mentioned in that article.
@Joe Dipinto (10:02) Loved the video. Oliver and Mabel are my kinda card partners. My dogs try but they both have terrible poker faces. 🙄
The pioneer - the man who invented and shaped the format - was Steve Allen. Paar, his successor, put his own twist on it and advanced it, as did every other subsequent late night host, but that hardly gives him the cachet to supplant the pioneer.
Super easy, sparkly and a cute theme = Tuesday bliss. I had a brief hang-up in the SW bur ROXY, SNIP, and OGRE got the VOL and EVER SO to EGEST into the grid.
I have never had a pet of any kind and I don't feel the need. My friends have all the dogs and cats I could want. We have an "office dog" who comes up to me looking for a doggy biscuit every time she comes in. I know she doesn't love me - I'm just a treat-delivery system.
My husband used to brew his own beer and I bought him two lovely BEER GROWLERs so he could share his product with others but now he brews with friends and never brings any home.
Thanks, Adam Wagner, and congratulations on your NYTimes debut and on the new addition to your family.
Regarding Steve Allen, I remember way back in the 50s I went to see the Steve Allen Show at the Hudson Theatre in NY when I was in the Army. At the time, Steve and Edie were the vocalists on the show and that night they announced their engagement. The rest is History!
@Teedmn - Your comment reminded me of this song. And you looked as sincere as a dog Just as sincere as a dog does When it's the food on your lips with which it's in love
SB stuff possible spoiler (might be best to not look at the list until you've finished any puzzles you're still working on)
@RooMonster (8:52 AM)
If you're interested, here's my current SB List (ty @jae for the idea). It's very much a work in progress, e.g. defs, re-formatting, etc. Hoping the link works. 🤞 ___
At one time, the university where I worked used a program to help track rents (I think). It was called Rent Roll. Every time it was mentioned in our IT staff meetings, I had to laugh. It always sounded like Scooby-do: "Ru-ro, rent roll!" BTW, I detested Scoob, but still thought it was funny. At first I would say it out loud in my best Scoob voice. No one laughed and looks on faces ranged from blank to irritated. So I stopped--but I was still laughing on the inside. Sometimes I really amuse myself, LOL.
Excellent debut, Adam. How about doing one for cats?
I don't mind the slang words. Gnarly is good, juicebar is good, but is my age showing in that I know nothing about WandaVision, and god forbid, how to play whack-a-mole, alas, or even 1/2 of Outkast?
But Oh Man (last week) and Oh Geez (today) and the raft of phrases that can be written several ways, with the answer usually a reach and not what anyone actually says, that have crept into the puzzles are the epitome of lazy construction and reflect the inattention of lackadaisical editors. I mean you, Shortz! AW GEEZ, can't you do better?
To my ear, HAH isn't quite right; moreover, it's not much righter than HoH. So I had to just guess between OTRAS and OTRoS. Fortunately, I guessed right.
Yesterday I felt too old; now I feel too young for not having seen Steve Allen on the Tonight Show. Really, though, I'm old enough, we just didn't have a TV. At first it was because the nearest station was in Milwaukee, 130 miles away. One family in town, which happened to be across the street from us, had an antenna that was 40 feet or so high; my Dad was invited over to watch the World Series once. Eventually Green Bay and Marinette got stations, but we were still a little slow to get a set. I missed out on so much! Anyway, PAAR PAR was a good one-two.
Despite having an Aunt OLGA, whom I barely knew, my go-to clue would be "Behind every ---- there really is an ----," the advertising slogan of famous girdle-maker OLGA Erteszek.
@Oren & others: Thanks for the reminder of the 10%, which reminds me to plug the fantastic French show "Dix Pourcent", or in English "Call My Agent". Office comedy/drama takes place at a Parisian talent agency, with cameos by a who's who of French acting talent.
@JoeD, You turned my day around with those boys. I think I have a painting on velvet of their ancestors somewhere. I took it down when the light burned out on the frame.
Well saints be praised, my surname finally made the puzzle. And having grown up with such a surname, I've heard all of these variations, and others. At least I have Uncle Bob (I wish) to be proud of.
Busy all day, and off now to deliver some furniture we sold. At least some justice was done today, gracias a Dios.
Stay well, y'all. Be back in the loop at some point.
Take three restaurants in your area that you loved, and three that you really disliked. Check the reviews on Yelp and on TripAdvisor. For me, TripAdvisor was uncannily accurate, and Yelp was all over the map. So now I ignore Yelp.
Learn Something New Every Day Dep't.: BEERGROWLER. Never ran across it. This created a real natick at 9-down. But what could AND_E be except ANDRE, or maybe ANDiE or even ANDeE? Of course, I wouldn't know anyone in Outkast--or even Outkast itself. I assume a "music" group? I went with R.
The theme appears to be about dogs making noise. Does our constructor have a neighbor with a noisy dog? They do many other things: eat, sleep, turn three times before lying down, sleep, eat, sniff butts, eat, poop, sleep...
And love, unconditionally. So I think they're misrepresented here. Add to that a lot of fill poop and the ODORS get a bit gamy. Bogey.
I’m not a big fan of internet lingo in crosswords, but if ELITEYELPER is a real thing then I give it a pass. I just checked and it is a thing. Well done Adam Wagner.
Could be risky to handle a yelping, growling, barking DOG (though a woofer might be a bit gentler).
Would argue that Jack PAAR and Steve Allen were the most interesting of all the late-nighters to this day, with Johnny Carson probably the best of the entertainers.
Some good Tuesday stuff here, giving the puzzle a little extra bite.
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Yesterday’s puzzle got a raft of complaints regarding the reveal. Well, compared to today’s DOG, yesterday’s reveal was downright GNARLY, dude!
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone really say "BEER GROWLER"? Is the "BEER" part redundant? I've always heard it as just plain "GROWLER"
Same here. I actually thought GROWLER, looked at the length, and left it blank until I had some crosses to figure it out.
DeleteWhen you’re in love, anything that reminds you of who you love kindles your heart. I’ve been gushingly in love with my dog Chester for almost ten years now (Thursday is his birthday), so yes, this puzzle drew joy.
ReplyDeleteNot only its cute theme – and a tight one too, as it focuses only on dog vocalizations – but then there was that backward SIT (which Chester does so adorably), plus RUB (as in belly), TAKE HOME (which had to be done after love at first sight), SHOW (as in “show dog”, which Chester would never deign to be), and BOND, which must be plain by now, has overwhelmingly occurred.
Mwah to you, Adam, for pushing my Chester button, and congratulations on your debut!
Just letting you know that I will be off for about two weeks, taking a road trip to visit some family. I will try to sneak in the Monday “favorite clues”. Wishing everyone well!
ReplyDeleteWhat is the clue for 15 across? Jim
ReplyDeleteTo have a connection with a person on the inside.
DeleteAn agent is a ten-percenter, not a fifteen-percenter, at least in the entertainment industry, where most people have agents. Managers can get 15 percent, but agents are legally limited to ten. Which is why, the Merriam-Webster dictionary, “ten-percenter” appears defined as “actor’s agent”, while “fifteen-percenter” appears nowhere. Because it isn’t a thing.
ReplyDeleteFavorite moment of the solve was deciding that the better answer for “Have _____ (be well connected)” was A. NIN.
ReplyDeleteBOB BARKER. HAH! Fully expecting Wink Martindale to appear tomorrow, now.
HA is the laugh syllable. HAH is more like “in your face.” Just me?
YELP* is a funny app. First thing one has to do is weed through all the service based reviews. My rule of thumb is that a complaint about the service is most likely more about the reviewer than the service, but if it really was the service that problem is probably fixed by now. Then you need to make sure you read several reviews of the food. That’s because many people are like my mother-in-law, everything is “the best.” The local Chinese takeout is serviceable but is about what you’d expect for a takeout place in a strip mall in small town America. YELP* has reviews from New Yorkers claiming it serves the best Chinese they have ever had. Maybe they were just really hungry after a long drive. In short, I do occasionally use YELP*, especially when traveling, but I take the reviews with many grains of salt.
I like to read the four and two star reviews. They tend to be more reasoned than the ones and fives.
DeleteAs soon as I finished the puzzle, I Googled “ELITEYELPER” to see if it was a thing. This article is a pretty funny/interesting look at one such Yelper’s sense of responsibility involving reviews: LINK.
DeleteI grew-up with a Sheltie. She was a biiiiiiig fan of yapping. i.e. non-stop yapping. Like all day, all night, yapping. FLAPYERYAPPER?
Food reviews on Yelp and elsewhere are only helpful if the reviewer can offer some context for their perspective. Ditto for recipes online. With recipes, I often find the name of the website or the description of the recipe revealing enough to make me pass on it. E.g., my Google feed brought up a recipe for pasta e fagioli. It omitted the e which, well, okay. It touted the recipe as 'better than Olive Garden! '. Umm, okay.
DeleteOMG, what is up with Rex today ? It looks like he took one of his generic “This puzzle stinks, I hate this puzzle reviews” and just rewrote it in a pleasant cheerful voice, lol. It’s like a Twilight Zone column. He stated how much he liked the puzzle and then went on to praise everything that he pretty much tears to shreds on a daily basis. Seriously, in one paragraph he manages to sing the praises of the likes of AW RATS, OH GEEZ, OY VEY, GIZA and OTRAS. Even the requisite rant (about YELPER) is mild by comparison.
ReplyDeleteAs for me, I’ve never been (and doubt I ever will be) a fan of things like PRAM crossing YESM, both of which I consider to be utter nonsense. However, I also understand that some people may feel the same way about OTT crossing ELS, for example. So I guess it is true that “for taste there is no argument “.
@Conrad - I feel like BEER is in the answer purely to make the answer symmetrical. An Adjective of Convenience, as it were. As far as I know there’s only one kind of GROWLER, although I suppose a Mead GROWLER could be a thing.
ReplyDelete@Jim - The answer is AN IN as in if one “has AN IN” they are well connected.
@Oren - My first thought was “15%? You need a better AGENT.”
Thank you @Adam for a most enjoyable Tues. puz. It was GNARLY dude! 🏄🏽
ReplyDeleteMed solve.
A typical NW, down, around and up to the NE ride. Not knowing BEER GROWLER caused a slight holdup in the NE.
Didn't meet any RAJAHs in India but was befriended by many other wonderful people. Pray that they all get the vaccines they so urgently need. 🙏
The Spirit of India ~ Ravi Shankar
Jeff Spicoli - GNARLY (Fast Times at Ridgemont High)
___
yd 0
Peace ~ Empathy ~ Kindness to all 🕊
The puzzle as printed on my IPad had only the word “be.” No “well connected.” Did any one else experience this incomplete clue.? Jim
ReplyDeleteLove a good DOG theme but this wasn’t developed enough for me. Flat revealer and weak themers. I like AW RATS and OH GEEZ and HOMBRE. A lot of the remaining fill was just rough and uninteresting.
ReplyDeleteBEER is a little redundant - but I can understand it’s use. I still have two my grandfather used i guess in the 40s. He was an Irish immigrant who worked his factory shift and stopped at the local tavern every day to fill up his bucket as he called it. More like a galvanized metal jar than the glass jugs we see today - it served the purpose for him.
I’ll take a pass on this one.
Merriam-Webster seems to be aware of "hah"'s existence: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hah
ReplyDeleteNice Tuesday, no complaints, not sure what Rex would replace "dog" with to improve the revealer. I'm def more a "hah" guy.
ReplyDeleteAny theme that has to do with dogs is okay by me. Sneaky.
ReplyDeleteAnother fine debut with a Tuesdee's Tuesdee. Just enough chew to lend interest to the seasoned solver, but entirely doable for newer folks.
I had a little trouble with the NE because I don't do WandaVision, OHGEEZ could have been many things, and at the risk of causing any kind of T.I.A. for the beer lovers on here, BEERGROWLER was only obvious when the theme became clear.
Other than that, I had PAAR, PAR, and HAr going across the middle because why not? Of course, eventually, IrEARD my dopey head and saw the error of my ways.
Congratulations, Mr. Wagner, on your first of what I hope will be many NYTXWs to come!
🧠🧠
🎉🎉🎉
On the app there must be a line missing in the clue form15A. My view just showed “Have ____ (be”
ReplyDeleteWe had an error we couldn't find for the longest time. Had ELITE HELPER - dogs are certainly that!
ReplyDeleteBeer growler is kind of messy for the reasons above. First thought as well but I left it blank because no one calls it that.
ReplyDeleteI thought elite yelper at first glance without any fill and then disregarded it saying, again, no one would know that.
Put heh I stead if hah. That was my final square after finishing because otres looked correct. Good puzzle overall.
I also don't pay much attention to the hierarchy of reviewers on Amazon or Yelp! or whatever. But I'm very aware that this community has a handful of people who could be described as "elite Rexers."
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteToo much BS today. Fifteen Percent? Are all ODORS stinky? Cluing on OH GEEZ. HAH!
ReplyDeleteThe stuff about ELITE YELPER was genuinely funny. But doesn't Rex know by now that people need their stinkin' badges? The upvotes, the badges, all the wonderful perks that go with them.
ReplyDeleteBEER GROWLER! That's new to me. What a funny term for it; I wonder where it comes from. Wikipedia reports, "It is claimed the sound that the carbon dioxide made when it escaped from the lid as the beer sloshed around sounded like a growl." Looking at photos, I see immediately why they're popular.
Very straightforward and Tuesdayish. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing to get excited about either. Do the puzzle and then get on with the day, I s'pose.
I now feel I was prescient yesterday: I mentioned BOB BARKER in relation to THE PRICE IS RIGHT, and yesterday’s quotation was, at least in part, about a dog. BEER GROWLER and ELITE YELPER are completely new terms for me. (And GROWLER without the BEER would have been equally opaque.) I thought the theme was fine, but there is some validity in Rex’s point about YELPER. Some DOG BARKing, though, does sound like YELPing, in my view. Today we got OLGA as an anagram -- I bet Chekov is miffed. I liked PAAR beside PAR. And the general chattiness of the fill: AW RATS, OH GEEZ, OY VEY, and also HAH, PSST, YESM, I HEARD. Words I liked: ELIXIR, BREEZE, ZINGER, RITZY, AURORA, GNARLY, ROSETTA. (Amidst all those Xs and Zs, you’d have thought Adam could have come up with a Q for the pangram.) I also liked BUM near RUDE and, at the risk of offending canines and their owners, ODORS crossing DOG.
ReplyDeleteToday there’s a passage by REBECCA MAKKAI, born Apr. 20, 1978.
“I refused to have bookshelves, horrified that I'd feel compelled to organise the books in some regimented system - Dewey or alphabetical or worse - and so the books lived in stacks, some as tall as me, in the most subjective order I could invent. Thus Nabokov lived between Gogol and Hemingway, cradled between the Old World and the New; Willa Cather and Theodore Dreiser and Thomas Hardy were stacked together not for their chronological proximity but because they all reminded me in some way of dryness (though in Dreiser's case I think I was focused mainly on his name). George Eliot and Jane Austen shared a stack with Thackeray because all I had of his was Vanity Fair, and I thought that Becky Sharp would do best in the presence of ladies (and deep down I worried that if I put her next to David Copperfield, she might seduce him).”
(From The Borrower)
I wondered if Rex would make BEER GROWLER his word of the day...and he did. What an odd term for a jug. I never heard of it and must say that I looked suspiciously at the answer before reluctantly writing it in.
ReplyDeleteWhen I already had GROWLER, WOOFER and BARKER and hadn't yet looked at the rest of the clues, I wondered what was left. Aha -- must be YELPER, I thought. How would Adam get there? Well, it seems as though there's such a person as an ELITE YELPER. Is that anything like an "influencer"? Can I get to be one? I mean I'm not all that HIP, but I can write the occasional ZINGER. And I'd promise not to be RUDE -- unless, of course, you wanted me to be.
An enjoyable Tuesday with very little junk and requiring some thinking. The thing that struck me most about the puzzle, though, is that there seemed to be an awful lot of "B"s.
Hey All !
ReplyDelete@Anons asking about 15A -
Clue is - Have ___ (be well connected)
No YELPing here, rating site or dogs. Not a pet person. Yes, we exist! Don't bother with rating things, because people are so fickle, any perceived slight, regardless if it isn't intentional or not, will get a bad review. There's a radio commercial I HEARD that goes something like, "They gave me a friend's and family discount. Hello, I'm not your friend" (said sarcastically.)
Anyway, puz was nice. Theme helped me not get my one-letter DNF at OhVEY/hELPER. Glitchy memory would've left OhVEY in if not seeing YELPER was more apt for a DOG puz. OY VEY! 😁
Still looking for the Q. Maybe could've put it in at FAd? FAQ. But then 36A would be a Seven ending in Q, resulting in new fill pretty much everywhere. So, nevermind!
Pretty nice fill. Some fun clues. Neat seeing ZINGER and GNARLY. Do surfers still say GNARLY? Doesn't seem the HIP FAD it once was.
@bocamp
Thanks for getting me to the Q🐝 so often! I don't know how you do it! I believe I'm getting worse at it each passing day. Aren't you supposed to get better as you know more words? Or maybe the ole brain is just maxxed out!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
Rex,
ReplyDeleteWorthless review as always. I really wonder what exactly in NW corner seemed like crosswordese to you.
While I may prefer to live in a world where an underground comic artist (albeit one who has done work for major musicians / TV shows) were well known enough to be a reasonable CW clue, I think we both know we live on Earth. Yelp is nearly as worthless a website as rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com, but it is very well known, even if you are only able to get half the clue.
Also, what is your aversion to negativity in clues? When a dog yelps, they are generally in physical or emotional distress. You say Yelping is not evocative of dogs, then say that dogs only Yelp if you are hurting them. They also yelp when nervous, or for other reasons. The theme wasn't 'good things dogs do when they're happy.'
It seems your ideal crossword would be all answers that you get right away, but that other people struggle with, to remind you that you're smart. I wonder have you considered ghost-submitting to the NYT?
I hope you stop blogging.
-Zachary
Mondayish here I usually get tripped up a bit on Tuesdays, but nothing but smooth sailing for me. I quit drinking before BEERGROWLERs became a thing, but I won one in a running race, It stayed in the fridge until we moved and then went into the trash with all of my other awards and racing bibs. I had a display room, but that’s not something that you move.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteGary Panter?? As goofy a thing as it is, I'll take ELITEYELPER over that any day of the week.
Hand way up for the 15% AGENT. Because usually "it's me", my first thought was "when did that happen?"
@Lewis 643am Chester ❤️ sounds like a name for the perfect dog. Enjoy your trip and safe travels. You're gonna be missed big time.
@Z 652am In written communication, I've used both HA and HAH to express laughter/delight, but most often it has been the former. Only HAH is used as a "take that!" interjection. But I could be sued into changing that if anyone really cared to waste the court's time/money to do so.
Funny thing about YELP and its influence, real or perceived - I know of someone who was "bought off" in order to not post a negative review, so the business could keep a high rating.
Bob Barker is (or least should be) well known for his work advocating for DOGS and other animals. This fact adds a nice bonus to the puzzle.
ReplyDeleteBlew threw this for a record Tuesday time and really enjoyed it. Some really fun and up-to-date stuff here: JUICE BAR, BEER GROWLER, ELITE YELPER, etc.(although including "beer" with GROWLER is a stretch). Also loved the BOB BARKER double-whammy--if you recall, his big PSA topic was to get your dog spayed or neutered. Only dud here was the revealer which ideally would have been MAN'S BEST FRIEND!
ReplyDelete@Z : IMHO Yelp is for people who travel and need to eat, TripAdvisor is for people who travel and like to eat, and CHOWHOUND is for people who just love to eat - even in their hometowns.
ReplyDeleteWhat does a retired DOG say? AARP.
ReplyDeleteODORS and 'ROMA crossing the revealer. PAAR next to PAR -- HAH. AW RATS and OH GEEZ. YES'M, I see SNIPs of wit wherever I look today.
What? No Q or V?
ReplyDeleteGrrrrr... Too easy.
Elite yelpers... https://southpark.cc.com/video-clips/pxokpi/south-park-my-experience-was-sublime
ReplyDeleteStrictly speaking, Jack PAAR wasn't any kind of late night pioneer. That would be Steve Allen, who established 'The Tonight Show' (which was created as the bookend to 'The Today Show'). Allen was a comic, at least in that context, but PAAR was the antecedent Cavett. PAAR did emphasize odd personality chatter, that I'll give.
ReplyDeleteAnd, is PAAR then PAR bending the rules, or just cute?
Olive and Mabel think the puzzle misrepresents dogs. They don't do any of the things it claims that dogs do.
ReplyDeleteNow if BISCUIT had been in the grid they might have perked up.
@Birchbark 9:13 AM
ReplyDeleteAARP made me laugh!
YELPER is also name for mouth call used in turkey hunting. 🦃
ReplyDeleteonce again mis-downright wrong-information masquarading in nytimes. Yikes in yiddish is GEVALT! ... oy vey is woe-is-me stuff. FEH!
ReplyDeleteA new Tuesday PR for me, as well. I found this easier than yesterday's. For whatever reason, my Monday came in a little slower than average this week. Just wasn't on the same wavelength.
ReplyDelete@Nancy - GROWLERs you might not know if you're not really a brew pub visiting type of person. I feel like they started becoming popular about fifteen to twenty years ago, but they're easy to miss if you don't go to those types of places. I've never seen one at a grocery store or a gas station as Rex's article mentions -- I'm sure they exist, but I see them at brewery tap rooms and brew pubs.
@Z - HA vs HAH. Either can be the laugh syllable for me. Looking through my texts, I'm likely to get a "hah" as much as an "lol" for humorous content. "Ha" seems to be a little more popular than "hah" with my cohort, but either is used. Context, of course, can make it to mean more "in your face" as you interpret it.
As for YELP, I kind of have a tolerate/hate relationship with it, more towards the hate side, but it does sometimes prove useful to me. You just have to develop a sense for how to use it, how to skim reviews and quickly figure out who actually seems like a reasonable reviewer, and: who has an axe to grind, who has no understanding of the type of food they're eating, who reviews only because they love the sound of their words, who has unrealistic expectations, who thinks they're being clever and funny but aren't, etc. So, it's a chore. But you learn to spot the types pretty quickly.
ELITEYELPER spoiled the theme. A fourth winner would have made this a standout.
ReplyDeleteThere wasn’t much to compensate for the flawed theme. Only five red plus signs in the margins.
It’s fun to say “gnarly.” Also “gnarls” as in the musical group Gnarls Barkley. Terrific rhyme, Charles and gnarls.
Thought Price is right yesterday and Bob Barker today interesting. Why not do a PIR themed puzzle? Only catch for me was UAE. I had UER first. Otherwise I really enjoyed it
ReplyDeleteDogs are the best. Only thing obviously missin from the puz was a themer endin in -LICKER. Cuz somethin endin in -BELLYRUBNEEDY would be too hard to pull off.
ReplyDeletestaff weeject pick: DOG. Runt revealer. Like.
Wanted HAR instead of HAH.
OK … M&A is callin runt-roll on ROMAS. Better ROMAS clue: {Preceded by a runt-roll from below: Stuff similar to 62-Across}. Consider this a complimentary runtpuz tutorial, if U don't mess with em much.
@Birchbark: Primo better AARP clue.
barkin sparklers: JUICEBAR. ELIXIR. OHGEEZ. ROSETTA. And A-ROMAS + ODORS, of course.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. WAGner. (Apt theme selection, dude.) And congratz on yer fine debut.
Masked & Anonymo4Us
biter:
**gruntz**
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, @Joe D (10:02)! Just.....Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! So cute!
ReplyDelete@Ian (from last night)
ReplyDeleteIf you're around and feel like it, email me (address on my profile) and tell me about partying with Stuart McLean.
Medium. Pretty smooth Tuesday with some interesting themers, although I’m with @Rex on ELITE YELPER. Liked it, nice debut!
ReplyDeleteAnyone who lives within 30 miles of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island knows that there is type of growler other than for beer. The Boeing EA-18G Growlers are electronic warfare aircraft stationed there. Many conversations in Port Townsend start with a line like “could you believe the Growlers last night.” There is a good bit of negative rabble-rousing about the Growlers, but I find their soft, low growl to be pleasant, like a distant thunderstorm.
ReplyDeleteI solved the puzzle las night and 15A clue was complete. I looked just now and it isn’t. Passing strange.
Excellent debut puzzle, Adam Wagner.
DOGs are pretty much my favorite things in the world so I loved this theme. EVER SO easy but I got tripped up in the NE not knowing SNIP about Outkast or WandaVision or surfing and just had tunnel vision there, couldn’t see the whole PIC. But despite that I thought this was a HIP debut. Congratulations to Adam, on both the puzzle and the new baby.
ReplyDeleteOY VEY might be something I’d say if I was ever forced to hear Taylor Swift sing her TIS song, or anything else for that matter. On the other hand, if someone told me they were an ELITE YELPER, I’d probably react with OH GEEZ and a huge eye roll. Sounds like something akin to an “influencer” which always makes me HAH out loud.
There are some hysterical restaurant reviews on Yelp from late February - early March 2020 in NYC where the writers complained about the food being utterly tasteless & the restaurants being very empty . . . . .
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete@Birchbark 913am Literally laughed out loud. Sick.
ReplyDelete@J-Dip 1002am Thanks for Olive and Mabel - love them! Don't worry, I deftly avoided the usually inevitable time-suck there.`😉
@Zachary German 854pm Far be it from me to defend Rex, but I'm curious. Why do you read him if you hate it so much? Inquiring minds and all that.
And just for the record, I hope he never stops blogging.
@anonymous Jim and others: I use the iPad app and it also only showed (be when I was in “across” mode. Oddly, the entire clue appeared when I was in “down” mode in that vicinity.
ReplyDelete@Zachary German - Or, you know, just don’t read Rex. It is not required. There’s WordPlay, Crossword Fiend, and xwordinfo.
ReplyDelete@Tim Arthur - And I assume you genuflect as you read the ELITE Rexers.
@Hungry Mother - You think you have Trophy problems... Starting about the 3:19 mark, this got a lot of attention from sports media when it first appeared.
HA v HAH - Having seen others comment I think I too use HA and HAH interchangeably to mean “funny ha-ha,” but only HAH for the “in your face” meaning.
@mbr - I don’t see any great difference between YELP* and TripAdvisor, but I have rarely used TripAdvisor so I don’t really know. I haven’t even heard of ChowHound.
@RichardStanford - Using the 2-4 ratings makes a lot of sense.
@Jmorgie - “Yikes” could be used to replace “woe-is-me” in English.
Regarding 15A - I just checked PuzzAzz and the NYT App and both have the full clue. It is possible, of course, that they fixed an earlier bug since people first downloaded the puzzle.
I thought it was delightful, with such a creative discovery of DOG sounds a varied array - a vessel to TAKE HOME BEER, piece of stereo equipment, a TV host, and Internet jargon. Lots of other pleasures, too - my favorites were in the I HEARD category: AW RATS, OH GEEZ, PSST, OY VEY, HAH, YES'M. The constructor unknowingly also worked in the fact that the DOG is my bete noire, as a consequence of my once being set upon by a German shepherd, thus: I RAN.
ReplyDeletePeter P 10:32 - Reading your comment on GROWLERs and brew pubs, I recalled my astonishment at hearing recently from my my semi-HIP, big-city-dwelling son that he'd gone to one to fill his GROWLER. I hadn't heard the term since childhood, when my dad would go to an ordinary small-town tavern to "rush the GROWLER." I'd had no idea they still existed.
Bravo for the Lake Street Drive link - GREAT band!
ReplyDeleteBOB BARKER attended high school and college in Springfield, Missouri and got his career start at KTTS Radio which is one of the oldest FM stations still on the air. He’s revered thereabouts for his philanthropic efforts in animal rights.
ReplyDelete@ Lewis (6:47) Good trip, safe travels.
@Flying Pediatrician (8:16) HAH! That link is hilarious and spot on too. I had a friend who owned a bar/restaurant which would definitely fall in the category of local dive but was popular for its cold BEER and great food. I helped out for a short time and was shocked at the RUDE behavior I encountered. I remember one guy in particular who sat down at a booth between the juke box and the pool tables and demanded a wine list. It took every bit of self control I had to keep from laughing in his smug face. That was long before YELP, but I have no doubt that by now he’s one of those miserable entitled jerks mentioned in that article.
@Joe Dipinto (10:02) Loved the video. Oliver and Mabel are my kinda card partners. My dogs try but they both have terrible poker faces. 🙄
The pioneer - the man who invented and shaped the format - was Steve Allen. Paar, his successor, put his own twist on it and advanced it, as did every other subsequent late night host, but that hardly gives him the cachet to supplant the pioneer.
ReplyDeleteSuper easy, sparkly and a cute theme = Tuesday bliss. I had a brief hang-up in the SW bur ROXY, SNIP, and OGRE got the VOL and EVER SO to EGEST into the grid.
ReplyDeleteI have never had a pet of any kind and I don't feel the need. My friends have all the dogs and cats I could want. We have an "office dog" who comes up to me looking for a doggy biscuit every time she comes in. I know she doesn't love me - I'm just a treat-delivery system.
My husband used to brew his own beer and I bought him two lovely BEER GROWLERs so he could share his product with others but now he brews with friends and never brings any home.
Thanks, Adam Wagner, and congratulations on your NYTimes debut and on the new addition to your family.
Regarding Steve Allen, I remember way back in the 50s I went to see the Steve Allen Show at the Hudson Theatre in NY when I was in the Army. At the time, Steve and Edie were the vocalists on the show and that night they announced their engagement. The rest is History!
ReplyDelete@Teedmn - Your comment reminded me of this song.
ReplyDeleteAnd you looked as sincere as a dog
Just as sincere as a dog does
When it's the food on your lips with which it's in love
@Lewis (6:47 AM)
ReplyDeleteHave a safe journey and happy times with the family!
@All dogs and dog lovers. 🐶 ❤️
___
BEER GROWLER
Have left the occasional review on Yelp; not an ELITE YELPER, tho.
Here is a bonafide ELITE YELPER: How to use a MOUTH TURKEY CALL - THE YELP (thx to @Crimson Devil 10:18 AM)
If YELPing is synonymous with crying here's a dog story with a happy ending: Dog Cries Every Time He's Touched — Until He Meets This Woman | The Dodo
@Birchbark (9:13 AM)
If I still shared space with a dog, that's what they'd woof, and I'd woof it right back. AARP! 🐶
@Anonymous (9:56 AM) / J. Carson (12:50 PM) / oldactor (1:29 PM)
Steve Allen, entertainment polymath.
___
SB stuff possible spoiler (might be best to not look at the list until you've finished any puzzles you're still working on)
@RooMonster (8:52 AM)
If you're interested, here's my current SB List (ty @jae for the idea). It's very much a work in progress, e.g. defs, re-formatting, etc. Hoping the link works. 🤞
___
td 0
Peace ~ Empathy ~ Kindness to all ~ Woof 🕊
At one time, the university where I worked used a program to help track rents (I think). It was called Rent Roll. Every time it was mentioned in our IT staff meetings, I had to laugh. It always sounded like Scooby-do: "Ru-ro, rent roll!" BTW, I detested Scoob, but still thought it was funny. At first I would say it out loud in my best Scoob voice. No one laughed and looks on faces ranged from blank to irritated. So I stopped--but I was still laughing on the inside. Sometimes I really amuse myself, LOL.
ReplyDeleteExcellent debut, Adam. How about doing one for cats?
I don't mind the slang words. Gnarly is good, juicebar is good, but is my age showing in that I know nothing about WandaVision, and god forbid, how to play whack-a-mole, alas, or even 1/2 of Outkast?
ReplyDeleteBut Oh Man (last week) and Oh Geez (today) and the raft of phrases that can be written several ways, with the answer usually a reach and not what anyone actually says, that have crept into the puzzles are the epitome of lazy construction and reflect the inattention of lackadaisical editors. I mean you, Shortz! AW GEEZ, can't you do better?
To my ear, HAH isn't quite right; moreover, it's not much righter than HoH. So I had to just guess between OTRAS and OTRoS. Fortunately, I guessed right.
ReplyDeleteYesterday I felt too old; now I feel too young for not having seen Steve Allen on the Tonight Show. Really, though, I'm old enough, we just didn't have a TV. At first it was because the nearest station was in Milwaukee, 130 miles away. One family in town, which happened to be across the street from us, had an antenna that was 40 feet or so high; my Dad was invited over to watch the World Series once. Eventually Green Bay and Marinette got stations, but we were still a little slow to get a set. I missed out on so much! Anyway, PAAR PAR was a good one-two.
Despite having an Aunt OLGA, whom I barely knew, my go-to clue would be "Behind every ---- there really is an ----," the advertising slogan of famous girdle-maker OLGA Erteszek.
But @Zachary, how do you like the blog?
@Oren & others: Thanks for the reminder of the 10%, which reminds me to plug the fantastic French show "Dix Pourcent", or in English "Call My Agent". Office comedy/drama takes place at a Parisian talent agency, with cameos by a who's who of French acting talent.
ReplyDelete@Birchbaark 9:13 LOL your AArp quip Thanks
ReplyDelete@JoeD, You turned my day around with those boys. I think I have a painting on velvet of their ancestors somewhere. I took it down when the light burned out on the frame.
ReplyDeleteAnother day, another puzzle.
@foxaroni 159pm We would have sat together in those meetings and pitied the lack of humor and/or whimsy in the room. 😉
ReplyDeleteOh Great - Frantic Fox images scurrying around now.
ReplyDelete@Z 315pm 🤣 You're welcome. Not a Scooby fan, but your comment makes me wonder what you have against frantic foxes...
ReplyDeleteWell saints be praised, my surname finally made the puzzle. And having grown up with such a surname, I've heard all of these variations, and others. At least I have Uncle Bob (I wish) to be proud of.
ReplyDeleteBusy all day, and off now to deliver some furniture we sold. At least some justice was done today, gracias a Dios.
Stay well, y'all. Be back in the loop at some point.
Take three restaurants in your area that you loved, and three that you really disliked. Check the reviews on Yelp and on TripAdvisor. For me, TripAdvisor was uncannily accurate, and Yelp was all over the map. So now I ignore Yelp.
ReplyDeleteEasy puzzle.
Learn Something New Every Day Dep't.: BEERGROWLER. Never ran across it. This created a real natick at 9-down. But what could AND_E be except ANDRE, or maybe ANDiE or even ANDeE? Of course, I wouldn't know anyone in Outkast--or even Outkast itself. I assume a "music" group? I went with R.
ReplyDeleteThe theme appears to be about dogs making noise. Does our constructor have a neighbor with a noisy dog? They do many other things: eat, sleep, turn three times before lying down, sleep, eat, sniff butts, eat, poop, sleep...
And love, unconditionally. So I think they're misrepresented here. Add to that a lot of fill poop and the ODORS get a bit gamy. Bogey.
I’m not a big fan of internet lingo in crosswords, but if ELITEYELPER is a real thing then I give it a pass. I just checked and it is a thing. Well done Adam Wagner.
ReplyDeleteRITZY BUM
ReplyDeleteThe BAR's ODOR'S like SMOG,
BEER and BOILERS, no mixer,
BOB will TAKEHOME a DOG,
OHGEEZ, then YES'M, ELIXIR.
--- EARL BOND
We'll see what tomorrow brings, but I'm still thinking that Tuesday and Wednesday puzzles have flip-flopped quality-wise.
ReplyDeleteOFL wonders about DOGs YELPing? Think puppies Rex. YELPERs for sure.
OHGEEZ AWRATS OYVEY, thought @spacey would give this a PAR or a PAAR.
Could be risky to handle a yelping, growling, barking DOG (though a woofer might be a bit gentler).
ReplyDeleteWould argue that Jack PAAR and Steve Allen were the most interesting of all the late-nighters to this day, with Johnny Carson probably the best of the entertainers.
Some good Tuesday stuff here, giving the puzzle a little extra bite.
Whenever I see a J in a puz, I look for the odd letters that help make a pangram. No Q - we have IRAN but not Iraq. A fine Tuesday anyway.
ReplyDeleteDiana, LIW (WXYZ, too)