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Lucy Van Pelt's frequent outburst to Charlie Brown / THU 6-24-21 / Caro who directed 2020's Mulan / Plantlike growth held up by gas-filled bladders / Nickname composed of only Roman numerals
Thursday, June 24, 2021
Constructor: Danny Lawson
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (with one potentially lethal crossing)
Theme answers:
- [HEAD]S OR TAILS
- SHAKING MY [HEAD]
- [HEAD]S WILL ROLL
Nikola Jean Caro MNZM (born 20 September 1966) is a New Zealand film director and screenwriter. Her 2002 film Whale Rider was critically praised and won a number of awards at international film festivals. She directed the 2020 live action version of Disney's Mulan, making her the second female and the second New Zealand director hired by Disney to direct a film budgeted at over $100 million. (wikipedia)
• • •
Also awkward was the fully written out SHAKING MY HEAD. It's a very common social-media expression, but "common" now only in its abbreviated form, "smh." SMH would be *great* fill. SHAKING MY HEAD feels weirdly formal and impractical and not (in practice) a thing. Lastly, awkwardness-wise, there's a ton of theme-length fill that is doing absolutely no theme work. Those long Acrosses in the NE and SW are just as long as the first and last themers, but ... no [HEAD]s. Those answers do end up being probably the cleanest and most attractive fill, but it's still odd to have theme-length answers in what look like theme positions and then ... no theme. The biggest problem for me, overall, was how basic and plain and easy to untangle the whole [HEAD] rebus was. Got it here:
And then realized that it was just going to be [HEAD] after [HEAD] after [HEAD], with no other rebus answers coming into play, here:
This left nothing very interesting left to discover. The overall fill quality is OK, about average. But that means the theme has to shine, and it certainly tries, with that revealer, but doesn't quite pull it off. So not much excitement to be had, unless you count very nearly getting Naticked* "excitement." I was excited to "know" the [Indian rice dish] today—I've seen it in puzzles before. But when I went to write it in, I realized I was quite sure about one little letter. So I wrote in BIR-YANI (which is basically what it sounds like in my head) and trusted that the cross I was missing would be clear. And let me tell you, it was Not. I think NIKI is a *fine* answer for the crossword. I am pro-all things NZ, and it's cool to get an unusually spelled name, and a woman director's name, into the grid. But ... back to the "unusually spelled" part. If you don't know her name (I did not), then you have to infer things, and inferring that final vowel was, let's say, an adventure. So much of an adventure that I honestly was trying to decide only between "A" and "O" for a bit, before deciding neither looked right in the Indian rice dish, and then running the other vowels. I hit the "I" and thought "that has to be it: NIKI / BIRIYANI." And I was right. But that cross will break lots of people today. I guarantee it. Both answers are good crossword fare, but crossing them at that vowel ... that's rough.
The only other issue I remember having came right up front, where I wrote in DAVID at 1A: Michelangelo's only signed work, but even as I wrote it in, I was thinking "it could be PIETÀ"—I tend to think of PIETÀ as a *type* of artwork rather than a single artwork, but I guess Michelangelo just did the one? Hmm, no, he seems to have done several works on the same theme (i.e. Mary holding the dead body of Jesus), but apparently the work of art in question is *The* PIETÀ. It looks like this.
Good day.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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141 comments:
Mostly easy except for going with VIc as the nickname before VIV. That took me a while to sort out as the Israeli prime minister was a WOE.
Solid, straight forward, beginner level Thursday rebus. Liked it, nice debut!
I thought smh meant "smacking my head"
Biryani is spelled wrong in my opinion. I have never seen it on a menu spelled the way the NYT has it spelled. And when I Google it there are 9 alternative spellings. While the NYT spelling is on the list, the common spelling is Biryani. I call BS. Anyone that puts a word in a puzzle that has that many alternative spellings is just cruel.
Biryani is spelled wrong in my opinion. I have never seen it on a menu spelled the way the NYT has it spelled. And when I Google it there are 9 alternative spellings. While the NYT spelling is on the list, the common spelling is Biryani. I call BS. Anyone that puts a word in a puzzle that has that many alternative spellings is just cruel.
I love all rebuses. This puzzle is a rebus. I love this puzzle.
Rex and Jeff Chen had different ideas on how "blockhead" relates to entering HEAD into a single square. Jeff has "block" being used as an adjective -- describing how HEAD appears. Rex thinks if it as a verb as in blocking the word HEAD. Both make sense to me. I thought that it might have something to do with the four HEADs being alongside a block of three black squares.
Congratulations to Danny Lawson for having only seven Terrible Threes in the grid. That left room for many longs, sixteen I think.
I spent the afternoon watching the Giants beat the LA Angels and their phenom Ohtani in 13 innings. The big hit was a homer by Mike Tauchman on his sixth at bat. He had struck out the first five.
As a rule, I like learning things when I encounter something new in crosswords. Today is the exception that proves the rule: My b!
Does one say "My b" instead of "My bad" because of all the time it saves? Or is it because the word "bad" is so hard to pronounce? Or are the "a" and "d" keys on your keyboard in the shop for repair?
बिरयानी
You’re welcome.
With no one to blame but my own ignorance, only a fortunate guess at the cross of ASWAN and WALT got me the completion today. Hadn't heard of either but both seem legit on a quick search.
Well, this puppy had a little crunch for the Thursdee. And a frebus!
What's not to like about Peanuts?
What's not to like about BLOCKHEAD?
What's not to like about HEADSWILLROLL?
Not a dang thing, that's what.
With the fun theme and feisty fill, I'm ranking this near the top for the Thursdees this year. Refreshingly enjoyable with just enough pushback to keep it interesting all the way through.
Congratulations on your NYTXW debut, Mr. Lawson! I look forward to your return.
🧠🧠.5
🎉🎉🎉🎉
@Shackfu has a point. I just checked the take out menu from the Indian restaurant that help get us through the quarantine and living in a hotel for 3 months after the plumbing flood last winter and they have several BIRYANI dishes. That said, NIKI was not one of my problems.
@Z
I don't think so. BIR(I)YANI is from Hyderabad, where they speak and write Telugu, not Hindi.
బిర్యానీ
You're welcome.
Could someone parse for me how "Drawing pencil?" leads to EYELINER?
Oh, THATs what “smh” means... I always thought it was akin to “pfft”! Just a sound...a snort of sorts..l
@1:10 - Well, okay. Except there doesn’t seem to be any consensus where it’s from beyond “the Indian sub-continent.” Either way, it’s most definitely not actually spelt BIRIYANI. I see Wikipedia says “modern” BIRIYANI might come from the Mughals, so maybe بریانی is better. So, apparently, there are as many alternative alphabets as there are are alternative English transliterations.
25 Across: Catalan is the language "proper to Catalonia". In Catalan, CAT is GAT, not GATO.
@Eric Fredericksen:
>> Could someone parse for me how "Drawing pencil?" leads to EYELINER? <<
Drawing attention to the wearer's charming appearance.
I thought blocks were the black squares. So confused!
I've had some encounters with Bull KELP while kayaking the British Columbia coast; amazing ocean vegetation.
It seems there is rather hot weather heading our way in western Canada: forecast. (Americans please click the "F" under the temperature if you don't know Celsius. It's OK, we understand.)
Other than spelling BIRIYANI correctly I had no trouble with this. Got the trick right away with (Head)s or tails. I’m a big Peanuts fan, so YOU BLOCK (head) was a gimme. And who doesn’t love MOON RIVER, another gimme. Loved (heads) WILL ROLL.
This was a fun puzzle. Only complaint, a little too easy for a Thursday.
Oof. Thanks!
BIRIYANI was the bad cross from the headline? I thought for sure it would be MCCOO / SNOODS, next to a truly weird clue for YOUDO. What is up with those? That east block was the most distressing patch as I see it.
@prlondon, the Catalonia cat thing bugged me, too. Constructor being cute, hits a cultural sour note.
Fun fact - in 1972, the Pieta was badly damaged by a guy with a hammer. His name, Laszlo Toth, was used by Don Novello (aka Father Guido Sarducci) in his hilarious correspondence with various politicians and celebrities, collected in The Laszlo Letters.
@Z and @Anon 1:10 -- I don't speak Hindi, Telugu or Persian, but FWIW Google Translate translates the first two as "biryani," the last as "barbecue".
@mathgent. So you're saying Mike Tauchman batted .166 and only got his bat on the ball one time in 6 at bats.
Unintended serendipity, I'm sure: The inclusion of WILL (from 45A) and a backward DAMON.
Rex likes all things NZ. Well, yesterday they beat India (BIRYANI eaters) in the first World Championship Test Cricket final.
<waving @jae: also confidently entered VIC instead of VIV.Fine Thursday. Hardest was S
Finishing...SW corner. Not fond of 'tolerance.' That's sort of grin and bear it. Hope we can do better and understand and celebrate differences. Peace.
Many lovely things here – and in a debut yet! A spotless grid. Sweet clues, such as [December number] for NOEL, [In-flight call?] for HEADS OR TAILS, and [Spots for spots] for TEA ROOM. That double-O cluster in the mid-east with SNOODS, MCCOO, and TOOT.
Two examples of a clue that sounds like a past-tense verb, where the answer is not a verb, with [Exchanged promises] for IDOS and [Left behind] for FORSAKEN. These are terrific misdirects. Then there’s that lush spread of splendid answers: PERSEVERE, TOLERANCE, BIRIYANI, FORSAKEN, SNOODS, HEADS WILL ROLL, and SHAKING MY HEAD – and in a debut yet!
Plus, for me, a reminder of how vivid childhood memories can be, as I can still hear the first two words of Andy Williams’ MOON RIVER exactly as he sung it, which I realized after filling in that answer.
Just a sweet package of loveliness, a first of I hope many gifts from you, Danny. Thank you very much, sir!
Explanation for short comment earlier -- That is, Matt Damon, who played Will Hunting in GOOD WILL HUNTING.
DNF at the cross of VIV and LEVI, where I had VIC and LECI. As is so often the case when I have a one-letter DNF, I had stopped caring about the puzzle by that time. Clues like “That’s ridonculous”, “Someone’s going to pay for this”, “My b”, “Since fore-e-ver”, and “That’s better than I expected” … well, I can live with one, maybe two of those before I start checking out.
Also, the two least well-known proper names in the puzzle (LEVI and NIKI) cross that ridiculous roman numeral clue and BIRIYANI, which is NOT HOW YOU SPELL THAT (I’m looking at it on my shelf right now … biryani). So basically, you’re adding a non-existent vowel to that word and expecting us to guess what it is.
This had been a really good week of puzzles up to this point This dog’s breakfast sure stopped that streak.
I object to the spelling of BIRIYANI also. I've never seen it spelt like that, and it threw me off for ages because I was sure it was the answer but it didn't fit. That said, the most stymying cross was LEVI with ALITO, for someone without in-depth knowledge of American or Israeli politics (and having gone wrong with VIC instead of VIV). Some of the clueing was a bit imprecise for my taste (or maybe I'm just not thinking of them in the right way to get the precision) - in what way is a SNOOD a net? How is AS TO synonymous with for (I also did not know ASWAN/WALT so had IS TO initially)?
Also, PINHEAD... really? Has this one not made it onto the 'ableist slurs' list yet?
Nice Thursday fun here. The repetitive HEAD was a little clunky - but YOU BLOCKHEAD made me smile as did the throw back to my huckleberry friend. Quirky trivia - don’t care for Indian food and didn’t know NIKI so that was my tough crossing.
Really enjoyable solve for me.
I had the same error!
Originally had VIC for 24-down, which led to an “almost there.” Knew my bad block was either that or the BIRIYANI/NIKI cross and LEcI was the more glaring questionable error.
I was hoping 1A would be the Pieta, which I saw when it came to the NY World's Fair in 1964. If I remember correctly there was a moving walkway that went by the famous statue so you couldn't linger in front of it. Memorable.
I got this one at PIN___, which was the nickname of one of my best friends in high school. Everyone called him "Pinny". This is the only instance of this particular appellation of which I'm aware.
Everything else pretty straightforward, except for the NIKI cross, which I guessed correctly. Hello to old friend SNOOD, which I haven't seen in forever, and which used to appear in my dictionary with an illustration.
The first clue that caught my eye was for MOONRIVER, which was a gimme. I'm with @Lewis for hearing the Andy Williams version, but more than the first two words, as it's something I like to sing when the urge for crooning strikes me. Would appreciate some explanation of what exactly a "huckleberry friend" is, though.
Nice little Thursdecito, DL, but it Didn't Last very long.
Same. DNF because I had VIC crossing LECI.
Thx Danny, for a fine Thurs. puz! :)
Easy-med solve.
Good start in the NW, getting PINHEAD / HEADS OR TAILS right off, which made for a fairly easy journey.
Only issue was (for me) an unusual sp. of BIR(I)YANI. Didn't know NIKI, but the 'i' seemed inferable enough.
Overall, a very enjoyable experience. :)
Henry Mancini cover of MOON RIVER (Harmonica Diatonic) ~ Emil H.
MOON RIVER, wider than a mile
I'm crossing you in style some day
Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker
Wherever you're goin', I'm goin' your way
___
yd 0
Peace ~ Empathy ~ Health ~ Kindness to all 🕊
@Joaquin 1251am 🤣🤣🤣 Now if someone can explain how "shortening" Weight Watchers to WW (3 syllables to 6!?) is another improvement...
@pabloinnh 747am Were you struck by how small the Pietà was? Of course, when I saw it in St. Peter's it was from a distance (and encased) thanks to that fool Laszlo Toth (Hi, @snabby!) Same reaction here to SNOOD. 😊
Not to be a jerk or anything...but I had LIV (54 - Is that a Super Bowl yet?) for the Roman Numeral. Does anyone write the RM 9 as VIV? (It's IX) And VIC is a common name, but...what number is that supposed to be? 96? (XCVI)
@Conrad - I was copying and pasting from Google Translate, but when I pasted the last one (the Urdu) it was different from what I copied. It was late and I didn’t really expect anyone to reverse the process, so I said “screw it” and went to bed. I just tried it again and the Urdu for BIRIYANI becomes the Persian for “barbecue” when I try to copy and paste. Ah, the joys of mysterious modern technology. Anyway, what I was trying to paste was the Urdu spelling for BIRIYANI because Urdu would have been the language of the Mughal Empire. #Fail
@Shé di Felina - Why “ableist?” I only know the term from Zippy the PINHEAD and as a sort of generalized insult like “jerk” or “fool.”
Hand up for VIc before VIV, which is also how Caesar writes an Iowa Area Code. If you did my Area Code (for my cell - still a Detroit #) as Roman Numerals it would be IIIIIII.
What a 🖕🏾clue for LEVI. He died 52 years ago and I don’t know about you, but the list of Israeli PMs is not something I have memorized. I get not wanting another jeans clue, but this seems a little extreme.
@Graham & @prlondon - I’m not clear on why you’re raising the point, but I double checked, Catalonia is still in Spain and Spanish is still one of the two official languages there. If Wikipedia is to be believed, only 39% of the inhabitants of Catalonia are native speakers of Catalan (which I assume they are using to mean “first language learned”). So, unless you’re fomenting Catalan Independence, the clue is fine.
@okanaganer - 40°? Yikes! How often do you see that in B.C.?
@Frantic Sloth - LIV was the last BC Super Bowl. (BC = Before COVID here, notBritish Columbia)
@Z 846am Thanks. It's somewhat startling to me that I didn't know that. 5 years ago (before I swore off the NFL) such ignorance would have been inconceivable.
Another Worlds Fair PIETA viewer here (yes there was a “moving walkway” and it was behind bullet proof class). Very nice to see Clyde Frazier in the grid as well.
Do OBOES really get their own section? I liked the clues on AAAS, TIED and TEAROOM.
I love a puzzle that starts with an art historical clue. And we have the added bonus of the Temple of Isis, which is one of those monuments they cut up like a jigsaw puzzle and reassembled on higher ground to escape the rising waters near ASWAN. I also love rebus puzzles and even though this one was simple (and I wasn’t exactly sure how to parse YOU BLOCKHEAD! as the revealer), I’m a happy camper. I got lucky at the NIKI/BIRIYANI cross, and I’m not sure how. I didn’t know NIKI at all, but I had a feeling I’d seen BIRIYANI spelled with that strange IY combination in the middle and when BIRYANI was too short, I went with it without thinking too much.
I, too, loved MOON RIVER as an answer – I’ll be singing it all day (sorry, Mr. S). SNOOD(S) is a word I’m fond of and it always sounds like something you should wear on your nose (a woolly nose-warmer for Canadian winters, maybe). ORO MEO looks like it should mean “my gold” in some language, but doesn’t. TO NOW I thought was awkward for “thus far” – surely nobody says that. TEAROOMs as “Spots for spots?” was cute (as in “a spot of tea” – veddy British). I’m a bit flummoxed by NOEL as “December number.” Do they mean “number” as in “one that numbs”? I liked Marilyn MCCOO and The Fifth Dimension back in the day. I had eclectic tastes back then, but one part of me responded to their mellow swing.
Today’s quotation is by PETE HAMILL, born June 24, 1935.
“Some newspaper stories can be presented in entertaining ways; they can make you laugh; they can make you weep. But they are not charged with providing exaltation or fantasy. In the most entertained nation in the history of the world, newspapers exist to provide the citizenry with truth. Sometimes the truth can have a moral point. Sometimes the truth is painful. Sometimes the truth is banal. But it has to be true. It must have a granitelike foundation in fact. The mere stacking of facts is not, of course, enough. The facts must be organized into a coherent whole. They must tell a story. And the great story usually tells us something larger than the mere facts, something about what novelists and philosophers have called, perhaps too grandly, the human condition.”
(From News Is a Verb)
I kinda liked Vic/LEcI. Pretty shitty construction and editting.
Is it true that whenever you read "I think" or "I guess" or something like that in the THEME section of the write-up, you can figure Sharp is going to pan the theme? I don't worry about things like that, so the reveler was fine for me and the puzzle well constructed. This may have been a debut puzzle (worldwide) but seemingly without any attempt to inject countless vanity entries. You would never guess Mr. Lawson is a classical pianist from the puzzle. At least, I wouldn't.
As an aside, In the past some have accused Z as never admitting to mistakes. Hopefully they will digest today's comments.
Great game, but I missed the Mets' first innings including a pitching debut!
I got naticked - but not that crossing. It was the abbreviated name and the Israeli guy. I had VIC for the short name and Leci for the other. Looked great to me. Ugh.
Hey All !
Wanted David at 1A for a while, plus camel for NOMAD, which briefly had me have DIC(HEAD) at 1D. Har! Couldn't be, could it?
Two-letter DNF today. Rex's I, had the O at NIKo/BIRoYANI, and ASsAN/sALT, because someone could be named sALT. Heck, there was a movie called Salt, which was the main characters name.
What is HEAD SWILL ROLL? 🤪
Marilyn MCCOO, holy moly, blast from the past.
Some random observations: Alwsys want to add another R to PERSEVERE, PERSERVERE. Clue on HAT was a head scratcher. (Pun intended 😋) Got VIV correct. Yay me! Interpreted clue as not a real Roman Numeral, but as made up of Roman Numerals, a V, an I, a V. I used to wear hairnets at a job I had, never heard them called SNOODS. YOU DO is missing something, no? Or am I missing something? (Bet the over on the latter.) Is the ? on Drawing pencil? clue needed?
Rex overthinking theme again. It's just putting HEAD in a block. YOU put HEAD in a BLOCK. Bam! Mic drop.
@okanaganer
I usually refer to blocks as the black squares, ala they "block" passage from one answer to the next one. A stop, if you will. But really, every square in a grid is a block. Maybe change it to "blocker"? Then we'd have puz blocks, ala squares in the grid, and blockers, which are black squares. Sounds good? What do y'all think?
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
well. didn't expect the rebus revealer to be, itself, a rebus, and BLOCKHEAD fit just right. is doing that against some rule? feels icky. I know, she fully says YOU... but still.
I took a deep breath and plunged a[HEAD] as I changed pANSY to TANSY in order to get GOT a[HEAD] instead of GOp a[HEAD]. It took great puzzle-courage on my part because I've never heard of a TANSY. But it was the only decision and it was right.
I loved this puzzle. I avoided the early pitfall of putting in DAVID instead of PIETA at 1A -- which would have given me DOLT or DODO at 1D instead of PI??. Since there is no 4-letter world for "fool" beginning with a P, I knew there must be a rebus. I figured it out at the wonderfully clued [HEAD]S OR TAILS.
It would have been the perfect rebus were it not for some cutesy, cloying and completely unnecessary modern slang-y cues like "My b!" and "That's ridonculous". Let's try and create puzzles with a shelf life of more than the next 15 minutes, shall we? Thank you. But other than that, I enjoyed this a lot. And any rebus with a "Peanuts" revealer is tops with me.
VIV - LEVI was a tough cross too if you're not up on your Israel history: VIC, and possibly VIK, easily fit, and VIM or VID are plausible
Somewhere, Ian Dury is smiling.
And another World’s Fair-goer raises his hand. Anyone else climb into the Gemini capsule?
Well, right off the bat, you got me doing the fandango tango with your PIETA. Why you ask? Well, like @Frantic - my funny bone twin...and NOT to be confused with a boneHEAD....I, too, saw my hero, Michelangelo's mesmerizing work of art in St Peter's. AND...I couldn't believe how small it was. I had expected it to be larger than God. Still intact. What ever happened to the heretic, Toth?
Then I get to the GATO and the Catalonia discussion. Under the dictatorship of Franco, the Catalan language was repressed - actually, it was downright forbidden to speak it. Only Castilian, please. They thumbed their noses and a few other things at Franco and spoke it anyway. You rarely hear it anymore except in Andorra, where it's the official language. It's a strange sounding language. Sounds like Spanish, Latin, French and throw in the towel if you want. Anyway, I didn't have any trouble with GATO although Danny (or Will) might've clued it as a cat in Mexico.
Then you give me MOON RIVER. I can sing that song at the top of my lungs - anytime, anywhere and I would put Andy Williams to shame. By the way, I met his ex-wife Claudine Longet in Spain. She was filming something or other and I was busy translating. This was before she offed that "Spider" guy...Anyway, she was very shy; very pretty and could't stop talking about Andy....That didn't last long.
OK...so we have HEAD rebus....I think of a million ways to use HEAD - I won't
I like this; it was pretty easy and it kept me entertained.
Thank you, Danny.
I was about to put in VIc when I realized it might be VIV, so I left the last letter blank (he wrote smugly). @Frantic, the clue doesn't say the name is a Roman numeral, but that it's composed only of Roman numberals -- so it could have been VIx, or VId, I guess.
As for the eye liner, I could be wrong about this, but isn't it a pencil that you use to draw on your eyebrows? That's the way I interpreted it, anyway.
I would have gone with biryani, too, if it had fit. But I is about the only letter you can imagine in that space; a or o or u would change the sound of the word, while the i sound sort of blends into the y sound, I guess. (@Loren, where are you?)
Me too for the World's Fair viewing. And I read and loved a lot of the Lazlo Letters (in those days I did a lot of reading standing in bookstores, so seldom finished anything), but never realized there was a real-life Lazlo.
as for the BLOCKHEAD, I think it just means you put the word HEAD in a block. That required writing smaller than I can, so I just drew a smiley face in each of those squares.
What I learned today: you have to be old enough to have gone to the 1964 World's Fair to know about the ASWAN Dam. It got a lot of press while it was being built; many in the US portrayed it as an example of Nasser's profligacy.
We're going away for a long weekend; I'll see you all on Monday.
A neat and tidy theme, quickly unpacked at PIN[HEAD], Still, the puzzle otherwise offered some pleasing Thursday resistance. Besides the fine entries @Lewis 6:43 pointed out, I liked the watery NE, with DAMP x DIVING x RIVER x AVON. Me, too, for an initial VIc, but I did know LEVI Eshkol; I also had thought that BIRIYANI was indeed spelled that way, so avoided those two trouble spots.
Help from listening to melancholy country songs shortly before solving: FORSAKEN. No idea: NIKI, YOU BLOCKHEAD (though easy enough to get).
SNOOD x MCCOO was my downfall, I guess not technically a Natick since SNOODS not a proper noun.
I wanted Reeds for OBOES, because 2 players does not a "section" make. (Yes, I'm aware of Mahler and English Horns.)
inre VIV x LEVI - Clue says "composed of only Roman numerals", so it doesn't actually have to make sense as a whole. LEVI is at least a common name - one of the Tribes of Israel.
GOOD GRIEF is the more common Peanuts expression to me, and unfortunately for my nanoseconds, it fit.
Is Rex overthinking the rebus, or am I just a simpleton (pinH)? You put a "HEAD" into a block, the block being a white square.
Thanks to the ASWAN dam for 52A
Is TANSY common? I wanted the much more common pANSY, but GOTAHEAD was rather insistent.
I was always in camp SMH = slap my head, but have come around to shaking my head.
Quarry was a good clue: I thought rocks, so tried MINE and ORES first.
The clue says "composed only of Roman numerals." It doesn't say it actually has to be a number.
I was done in by VIV/LEVI, too.
I was clearly not fully awake when I attempted this puzzle. I stared at the clue for 46D "Since fore-e-ver" and thought it was a golf reference! The fact that I got as far as I did was a miracle.
@Nancy 9:54 - you may have forgotten about 'prat'. More of a Britishism but certainly retained in American English in 'pratfall'. And there's 'putz'. How do I know these? Because I considered both before getting the rebus.
After 55A things wrapped up quickly. I imagine that many in the named generations subsequent to the Boomers will know the Peanuts characters from the holiday cartoons so no empathy will be necessary. Except for Moon River, Levi, and McCoo. Ok, empathy.
Yeah, Biryani. Little shrug emoji here. It would've been really diabolical to clue 24d as A friend who loved Lucy.
Sometimes I worry that if I reach a certain age, all I'll remember are random facts about the Oboe. This year alone it's lapped DiMaggio's streak several times. I'm not even sure it should be clued anymore. Make it like the free square on a bingo card and publish the puzzle with Oboe already filled in.
Barbara: I just finished reading Pete Hamill's Why Sinatra Matters yesterday. He was a friend of the singer. They closed up Jilly's and some other NYC joints a number of times. I've read two or three other books about Sinatra but this one gives an insight into the man's personality that the others don't.
@Roo 🤣 HEAD SWILL ROLL is another term for a HEADcheese sammich.
BTW, Roo, et.al., Speaking of Roman Numerals...You made me revisit the clue and it says "Nickname composed only of Roman numerals, so if taken individually, I see the difference. 5 1 5 it is!
For me, the individual squares, be they white, black, grey or rainbow, can be known as blocks. As for the clue for 55A, I never got past the Lucy van Pelt reference and so never had to ruminate about the post-apocellipses clue problem. Know your Peanuts and life works out.
I knew something was up because after filling in all the obvious answers I still had nothing making sense. Got all the way down to Lucy before the light when on and I remembered it was a Thursday. It's hard to keep track of the days of the week when you live on an island and don't work any more. I like it that way.
Did I miss it or are we still expecting the POW award ? If so, yay.
No happy music today but by that time I didn't care whether it was Niki or Niko.
Comments from 12:06 AM to 3:22. Don't you people drink?
Luckily for my solve Jeopardy just had the very same clue as 1A. Otherwise I would hope tried David. Also couldn’t get all the vowels in the rice dish at first. As for the cat clue, if you’re going to make a point of going to Catalonia in the clue, should the answer really be in Spanish?
TOLERANCE was the word that made me smile today. Usually,I’d be all over a Thursday rebus, but today I wanted something more than just a HEAD that was decapitated from its phrase. Thought that the cluing was especially interesting (see@Lewis) and even the lIc? cIx? Latin clue for VIV continued that trend. Having started in the northeast with its heavy dose of V answers, I found it easily, but puzzle partner was flummoxed in that spot. Sorta surprised that LEVI caused chagrin for some. As grandpa to Moses and founder of one Jewish branch, Levi seems like a worthy xword dude?
Nice debut Mr Lawson! Looking forward to seeing you on a Saturday morning.
Thanks for the Pete Hamill quote, @Barbara S. I found him absolutely devastating whenever I saw him interviewed -- and it certainly wasn't because of his looks, especially. I patted myself on the back for my sophisticated attraction to print journalists rather than Hollywood actors (Ben Bradlee was another such crush)...until I discovered that Pete had cut a very wide swath through a bevy of famous and desirable women, Jackie O. and Shirley MacLaine being two of them. Oh, well.
But, ladies who aren't familiar with him, you might want to go to YouTube and find an interview. He was fascinating and a real charmer.
Got very bollixed up with TANSY. Had dAiSY and couldn't sniff out how that could possibly be wrong. I mean, asters do look like color-added daisies. Plus I never heard of a TANSY.
Then I got further bollixed with the Roman numeral because I kept thinking it had to be an actual number and, of course, VIV is not a real number. Then (palm to forHEAD), I reread the clue. Duh. StupidHEAD me.
I've never eaten BIRIYANI but somehow, even with that extra "i," dropped it right in. But then I looked up a couple of recipes for it. Holy gwak-o-moley. Check out your spice rack before you go shopping and set aside most of the day for the preparation. It looks completely worth the time and effort, though.
Hey, it's a Thursday verbis puzzle. Instead of just multiple letters in a single square, which would be a litteris puzzle, we get a whole word in a single square, hence a verbis puzzle. For it to be a rebus puzzle, a square would need to have "a representation of a word or phrase by pictures, symbols, etc." (Random House College Dictionary). This one has the actual word itself. So to flip the Latin phrase around, this puzzle is non rebus sed verbis (not by things but by words).
Hand up for seeing the Pieta in '64. I was not quite 7 and it was the first big trip I was allowed to go on with my family.
Later saw it in its native habitat. So beautiful, hard to believe it's stone.
As to the puzzle, I always like it when the rebus is, you know, an actual rebus, insteald of a xword "rebus" i.e. anything except a single letter in a square.
Super Bowl LIV was the last Super Bowl before Covid?
Wow!!!! That's spectacularly wrong. The CDC has teh first US case confirmed on January 21, 2020. Super Bowl LIV wouldn't be played for another twelve days.
And that's the first US Case that virus had been killing people in China for more than 6 weeks before that.
Liked this puzzle a lot.
To me, 'block head' simply means write the word 'head' in the puzzle block.
But wondering about 31D: "oh, is that so?' and "you do" aren't automatically connected, imo.
Haven’t even read Rex yet but just had to share this. Looking over the grid, I was drawn to VIV. Clued as a nickname composed of Roman numerals, it made me think of the Spanish “viva.” On a lark I checked YouTube and found an amazing artist, Ada, singing VIV The genre isn’t one I normally listen to, but there was more to this. I couldn’t understand the words but her voice* was so well-intentioned. I found the lyrics and plugged them into google translate. Here’s a snippet:
Live
With tenderness, wisdom, without judgment
Live
In light, weather, good times
Live
With respect, and peace, and line**
Viv, cause we just wanna live
What a perfect tie-in to the Helen Keller quote. (Bet our @bocamp got a smile from that one!) The song has a social/political justice bent. Very brief summary - life is hard work, don’t drop the load, knowledge is power, join together to live with joy and shout for change.
And I’m no dancersizer, but this made me get up and move.
Yay, serendipity.
*her natural voice, not the autotune!
**Anyone out there know Haitian Creole? The original is “linyon” - alternate translation is “meeting.” Might it refer to a kind of unity?
Raising hand to join the VIc/LEcI DNF club.
I'm with those who question that the trickiest cross was NIKI with BIRIYANI more than VIV with LEVI. Normally I would spell it "biryani" myself, but since that's the wrong length, BIRIYANI seems the most logical alternative.
Not in a good HEAD space for this puzzle, so I'll keep it short. YOU DO? as an answer to "is that so?" strikes me as a crappy fit, and MCCOO is just not good PPP (The 5th Dimension is from so long ago; have no idea of who that singer might be). "My b!" -- just annoying -- do people actually say that? TANSY I didn't know, making me feel like a BLOCKHEAD. For me, TOLERANCE was unguessable without crosses, and the quote doesn't seem that memorable a sentiment for someone of Helen Keller's stature. ASWAN, okay, there's a big dam there or something.
The cluing for TEA ROOMS I thought was pretty good. It took me long enough.
SB:
From the YOU BLOCKHEAD! department: I did get QB on today's, but foundered for what seemed forever on a 4-letter word, which is about as galling as it gets. And still -1 on yd D-:, on a 6-letter word. That did not put me in a good mood to start the day.
I can only imagine how beautiful Michelangelo's Pieta is.
For anyone within shouting distance of NYC, The Cloisters ( Part of The Met) have a couple of Pietas that are truly haunting. None more than one carved in wood (Vesperbild). It's done with the German mystical tradition which holds that the Blessed Mother in her agony and grief imagined she was holding Christ as a baby once again her arms. It might may you cry. I am as I write this.
imo, this puz has too many repeated words appearing in the grid... YOU, ON, and DO are used twice, and TO appears thrice...
addTO, asTO, TOnow, YOUblockhead, YOUdo, (slip)ONs, ONcue, youDO, iDOs
Yesterday had.... shapeUP, and shutUP which also caught my eye, because i thought repeating a word is not allowed.
Anyone else have a thought on this?
@jberg 10:10 - you missed a vowel. 'Nike' is a perfectly reasonable name, and and 'e' in biryani would sort of get lost between the 'r' and the 'y' - maybe more so than the 'i' does.
When I was a pre-teen, I discovered the book, “The Agony and the Ecstasy” and devoured it several times. It was explained that when the Pietà was displayed for the first time, Michelangelo lurked in the shadows, observing the observers. He heard a discussion about who the sculptor could be. He was not well known at the time. That night, he went into the hall where his Pietà was displayed and chiseled “Michelangelo Buonarroti of Florence sculpted this” into the band across the top of Mary’s robe. It looks like decorative trim.
I, too, was at the World’s Fair in 1964, and the thought that I could actually see this statue in person was overwhelming. I have since seen it several times at Saint Peter’s, and I always check out the inscription.
There is a charming little Pietà in Bruges as well
@Nancy, Let's try and create puzzles with a shelf life of more than the next 15 minutes, shall we? Yes.
@Nancy, @Barbara, @mathgent, Loved the quote. Pete Hamill, The Drinking Life.
@Gill, You deliver every day but today was exceptional.
@Frantic, Know your Peanuts and life works out. Yes.
Great to see CLYDE tha glide, aka Fly, whom I much enjoyed, along with Dick Barnett, Earl tha Pearl, Senator Bill Bradley, Jerry (memory man) Lucas, Dave Debuscher, Willis Reed and sub, future Zen master Phil Jackson, coached by Red Holtzman, back when the Garden was eden.
@jberg 1010am Yeah. I read your mind (before the comments got posted)! Have a lovely weekend. Safe travels.
@JD 1027am Did you know that the OBOE is used to tune up all the other crosswords? It used to be OREO, but for some reason that kept disappearing. Along with gallons of milk.
@Anoa Bob 1107am I'm crushed that you've tossed "frebus" on the trash heap. 😉 (Not really, since I'm the only one who ever uses it.)
@Anonymous 1115am So...what did you think of the crossword puzzle? Also, I don't speak for @Z, but if I did, I would explain that "pre-COVID" in conversation usually refers to "pre-US-lockdown" and all the subsequent closings, postponements, and the like - not when it first appeared on the planet. But if it makes you feel better to use "Wow!!!! That's spectacularly wrong" maybe stick to calling out typos. 😉
Rex,
For someone whose hobbies and career are based on words you are aggravatingly imprecise with yours. Pieta is not a type of artwork. Its a subject in art. The work can be in a lot of forms: sculpture, carving, and painting to name only the mist popular.
Let's see, a 4 letter Jewish male name, LE_I. What could it possibly be?
BIRIYANI is a noted alternate spelling so what's the problem? You never saw an alternate spelling in a crossword puzzle before?
Spanish is one of four official languages in Catalonia so nothing wrong with GATO.
An interesting fact about Michelangelo's Pieta: Mary's body is much larger than Christ's. One is not struck by this unless you look for it because Mary's facial features are sculpted so delicately and most of her form is concealed by drapery. But if she were to stand, she would be more than 6 feet tall. This solution was necessary to provide a stable base for the figure of Christ and it gives the work that pleasing triangular composition, so popular in Renaissance works of art.
I saw the Pieta in St. Peter's before the hammer attack when you could get as close as you wanted. Those were the days.
The concept of a pieta is morbid and sick.
@jae same problem here. VIV and LEVI is definitely a Natick. Though I get that LEVI is a more common name in that region.
@Shackfu I agree with you on the spelling of Biryani.
Overall found the puzzle enjoyable, maybe because I was able to drop PIETA straight into 1A and also enjoy the memory of seeing it in St Peters. There's a cool story of Michelangelo picking up his chisel to put his name on the Pieta after overhearing some criticism.
Honestly thought I had an error at TANSY. The spelling looks too much like pansy.
For those of you who might be interested, there is an online crossword tourney TONIGHT presented by Andrews McMeel Universal for KCUR 89.3 (Kansas City's NPR station) and hosted by David Steinberg and Amanda Rafkin. It is from 7:30-10:00 and includes three puzzles. This is a chance to experience a crossword event in a small chunk. Cost is $30 to play and $15 to watch (and you still get the puzzles to do at your own leisure).
FWIW, one of the puzzles is one I made with Jeff Chen, that will be published by Universal early in July. For more information, here's a link: https://www.kcur.org/kcur-89-3s-crossword-puzzle-tournament-presented-by-andrews-mcmeel-universal .
Those times are Eastern time, btw.
BIRYANI (alone) has 37.9 million results; BIRIYANI (alone) has only 3.9 million results. They should have at least put "var" in the clue. I had no idea about NIKI so I was just guessing. Like Rex said, it's an awful cross, but especially since it's not the more usual spelling of BIRYANI either.
Has the NYT totally stopped with the var thing, or am I misremembering?
anon 12:47-Perche?
I’m late to today’s party but I had to comment on the greatest “clutch” basketball player of ALL time. Walt “Clyde” Fraser.
I’m sure everyone is gonna nominate one of the other greats but NO ONE could do what Clyde could in a critical game situation.
If you needed a jump shot. Layup, rebound, steal, defensive stop or an assist He would do it.
He had the most complete skill set I’ve ever seen.
@crimson devil Clyde the Glide was Clyde Drexler of Phi Slamma Jamma fame.
A great finisher but couldn’t do everything Fraser did.
Good Lord bruh get a grip
Feared I might be stumped today until I saw the rebus and everything fell into place. Disagree that the revealer was awkward, I thought it was adorable. I mean what’s not to love about Charlie Brown? Thought “In-flight call” for HEADS OR TAILS was brilliant. Nothing unique but definitely NOT SO BAD. Nice debut Mr. Lawson. Hoping YOU DO more like this.
TANSY was new to me as was the clue for OOPS. I’ve always loved the look of SNOODS which were ONCE commonly worn. What a great look to OPT for on a bad hair day, and some of those ladies could really pull it off. However I’m not one of them. For about five years long ago, I worked at a cereal manufacturing plant. Hairnets were required in all food processing areas, no exceptions. Fortunately I didn’t have to go there often because when I did, I always managed to resemble Ruth Buzzi on Laugh-In.
Yeah, oof is right. Yuck.
EYE LINER does just what it says: draws a line next to the lashes on the lids, top and bottom, to accentuate. used to be pencils, now liquid.
Nodding (not shaking) my head, reading the comments as shared most of the same issues. The longest mess to unsnarl for me was giving up hOnk for TOOT. Gave the puzzle bonus points for showing for of the HEADS lopped off in One Thousand and One Nights - from the Scheherazade stories. Wish the answer had been HEADS instead of ARABS. Great Thursday.
Correct, thanks.
@A (11:23 AM)
Thank you so much for the VIV link; great find and sleuthing! :) I'm now a fan of ADA, and you're right about the smile. 😊 Also, the lyrics are indeed righteous!
And, you're right on with your "… perfect tie-in to the Helen Keller quote." A big amen for her assessment of TOLERANCE!!
@Crimson Devil (12:11 PM)
That Knicks team is my all-time fave! 🏀
@Mr. Cheese (1:05 PM)
Agree with your assessment of of WALT Frazier.
___
SB Stuff
@TTrimble (11:26 AM) 👍 for 0
For my final discovery, I too 'foundered' (for at least an hour) on a four-letter word (may have been the same one as yours). The irony is that it's one I frequently use, and is also in my word list, so I see it in every morning in my pre-SB study. Wow, what a wake up call (literally). 😳
0
Peace ~ Empathy ~ Health ~ TOLERANCE ~ Kindness to all 🕊
I actually thought HEADS WILL ROLL would have been a better revealer than BLOCK HEADS. It actually justifies putting the HEADs at the extreme edges of the grid. This, to me, is a huge missed opportunity.
I started out with GOOD GRIEF instead of YOU BLOCKHEAD. That didn’t last long as none of the downs fit.
Me too, on VIC for VIV.
Liked it! Lots of clever clues.
Easy one (for me), SO not always the case! (Haha not one sports clue - 😜)
And of course loved BIRIYANI and PIETA.
Here’s to block heads!
👍🏽🤗🧩🤗👍🏽
@Z 8:36 am... they have now revised theforecast to 41°C (106°F) for the next week! Yes, that is a bit toasty, especially for June. We actually have quite hot summers here, and usually get 100 F or higher sometime in July. I know, not what most people visualize for Canada.
@I GILL and anyone else - please do NOT sing Moon River at the top of your lungs:)
@anon 11:37a - beautiful post that will keep me reading posts from team anon. I walk by the Cloisters at least once a week, but only go in rarely - due for a visit now, thanks to you.
@Anoa Bob - enjoyed your Latin refresher, but language has morphed and the xword gods have declared that anything jammed into a square is a rebus.
Walt Frazier now known for his natty attire and his rhyming schtick on the Knicks broadcasts. Bounding and Astounding, Bouncing and Pronouncing, etc.
Same with the VIC Natick!
Haven't seen SNOODS IN AGES!
Yep - me too w VIC instead of VIV
Hope I'm not repeating, but OFL says there were just 3 theme answers--[HEAD]S OR TAILS, SHAKING MY [HEAD]; and [HEAD]S WILL ROLL--plust YOU BLOCK[HEAD].
But what about the downs? PIN [HEAD] at 1D; GOT A[HEAD] at 25D; [HEAD] WEST at 32D; and [HEAD] SET at 59D?
@Frantic (10:35) That headcheese samwich? I grew up watching that stuff being prepared in my mother’s kitchen, starting with the actual head cooking in a big pot on the stove. It’s just as disgusting as you might imagine. Picture the bunny rabbit in Fatal Attraction only worse. Much worse. 🤮
Liked today’s BEQ offering. I especially liked the clue and answer for 9D. If that had been in the Times Rex would’ve had a conniption. It must be nice to be able to create puzzles without fear of being assailed by a nosy Parker.
Took the route less traveled today. Having spotted Lhasa____, I decided to start in the doghouse, then backed up into the balcony scene. Our “house red” used to be a cab from GATO Negro, so I sloppily plopped in GOpro for 25D and then pANSY. Ended up with oSWILLROLL. Thought the O might represent a kind of HEAD? (Charlie Brown’s head, in fact. Then it would be more like a real rebus, right @Anoa Bob?) Revisited the 25D clue and GOT A HEAD. TANSY flowers are cute as IMPISH buttons, but they can be invasive.
Pretty steady from there, with a yield sign at the intersection of NIKI and BIRIYANI (which I have only seen as BIRYANI, but I’ll gobble it up no matter how it’s spelled!) Tossed in the I and tOOdled happily along. Then came to a full STOP at SNOODS, or is it SNO ODS? Never laid eyes on that one. Can’t wait to look up that etymology!
I always hesitate at dupes, like ADD TO and TO NOW, but there’s something charming about “YOU DO, YOU BLOCKHEAD?” If you say it lovingly, like YOU big galoot.
Oodles of Os and OOs but I’ll let someone else count them. I did find 3 diagonal OOOs. And we got a full corner to corner diagonal with another OO and two palindromes.
Fun MCCOO/COW cross (she’s anything but) - hope @M&A has time to do this one!
Learned about SNOODS and the palindromic Ada and VIV (link at 11:23). Thanks for the OOOs and AAAS, Danny Lawson.
SNOOD is also name for useless protuberance that hangs off male turkey’s face.
Natick confirmed at the intersection of NIKI/BIRIYANI. Approach with caution; speed limit 1MPH.
@brtonkd 3:08....Just for you:
MOON RIVER...WIDER THAN A MILE....I'M CROSSING YOU IN STYLE SOME DAY.
LALALALAL YOU HUCKLEBERRY, YOU. LA LA LA LA LA
@okanaganer - When I think of BC I think of Vancouver and the moderating influence of the Pacific, so I tend to think of even 35° (95°F) as a rare event. For Windsor or Toronto that wouldn’t strike me as all that unusual since their climate is close to Detroit’s.
@Ethan Taliesin - I haven’t noticed the absence of “var.” but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is more common earlier in the week.
Like @Anon 12:38 said, the VIc to VIV correction was easy because LEVI. I missed the SNOODS MCCOO natick because the first has been in the puzzle enough for me to remember it and MCCOO is wheelhouse. I see now that that cross is almost as bad as BIRIYANI/NIKI. “Almost” because no transliteration from a foreign alphabet was involved.
@Frantic Sloth 12:13 I was nodding my head at your sagacity and then @12:20 happened, totally misunderstanding a common English word and with the typo de rigueur. It is really quite astounding. Fremdschämen Rules!
@TJS - I recognize one Hawaiian and one British Columbian in the mix, so their posts aren’t as near closing time as they appear. My excuse is I played disc last night, so was still pretty amped up despite having had a couple of beers.
@pmdm - First time this century and it was Uncle Google’s fault. 🤗
(I write something like this fully knowing that a few people can’t discern when a tongue is firmly planted in cheek, but whatcha gonna do?)
@ jberg & al
One more hand up for the 1964 World's Fair, but the funny thing about Aswan is that I did a report on it probably 4 years later...now I wonder if I originally got interested because of the WF.
Also re: LEVI, Ido not remember the guy, but LEVI sure sounds like a name an Israeli prime minister would have, so went with it.
Kinda the same with BIRIYANI, pretty sure you don't need that 2nd I, but if you say it slowly you can hear that there's room for another I sound...
Overall, very easy, way under normal Thursday time (actually a hair under this week's Tuesday).
But fun!
burtonkd @3:08 PM, the reason Latin and ancient Greek are used in many disciplines and practices is because they are considered "dead" languages and as such are no longer morphing, no longer changing or evolving as is the case with "living" languages. Their meanings are set in stone, so to speak. This timelessness makes them useful in science, medicine, law, philosophy, math, etc., because they will always mean the same thing to everyone. They leave no room for future ambiguity or misunderstanding.
In linguistics, for example, the phrase Rebus Principle was chosen to describe the historical process of going from pictographs and hieroglyphics to abstract letters in an alphabet because rebus means "by way of things". A drawing of an eye, for example, at first literally represented an eye (a thing), then the drawing changed slightly and came to represent a syllable, (the sound of "eye") and later changed further to represent an abstract letter of an alphabet, maybe the letter "I".
Therefore, using a Latin word like rebus in a way that is markedly different from its original meaning defeats the whole purpose of using Latin in the first place, to capitalize on its timelessness. It's wrong. Its unchanging nature has been changed. Quod erat demonstrandum.
Frantic @12:13 PM, "frebus" for "false rebus" has merit but I'm leaning toward just calling them what they are rather than making up a separate term. Sometimes we get a multiple-letters-in-a-square puzzle or, as today, a word-in-a-square puzzle. No need to (mis)appropriate a Latin word in an attempt to make it look more complicated or sophisticated than what it is. It's just more than one letter in a square. What's the big deal?
"The Ridonculous Red Onion" would be a good title for a children's book. So would "The Impish Apso".
Last Tansy in Aswan
@Z
I say "my first mistake this year" all the time.
No one in the history of the world has ever said "My b." Horrible clue
@Anoa Bob - Their meanings are set in stone, so to speak. - That “so to speak” is doing a lot of work. Using Julius Caesar as the fulcrum and comparing to Shakespeare, the beginning of Latin is as from Caesar as Beowulf is from Shakespeare and Late Latin is as far away from Caesar as you and I are from Shakespeare. So, yeah, “so to speak” is doing a lot of work.
@7:23 - Urban Dictionary disagrees. I think many here will appreciate the top definition, though:
Diminutive of "my bad", the enunciation of which saves neither the enunciator nor the listener any time of mind or eardrum, though which does indeed spare the enunciator the torment of touching the tip of his tongue to the front upper roof of the mouth as when one does actually say "bad".
@JC66 - 👍🏽
Absolutely right about that cross. I've only seen it spelled BIRYANI and, while I'm a fan of "Whale Rider," it's a long time seen I saw that move (never saw "Mulan"). Guessed "Niko"/"biroyani" and, sure enough, it was a natick. I don't care for naticks, personally. To put it mildly.
as an aside, when i encountered NATICK in crossword commentary, I thought it was an acronym:
Not
A
Thing
I
Could
Know
Anon Bob
Go with God. Someone doesn’t get it. ( and the fact that he doesn’t get the set in stone usage is gravy)
Like jokes, tongu-in-cheek comments are better when they have to be explained.
So, you thought EYE LINER was a waste of time? Well, here's a way to save a few minutes in the morning: https://www.byrdie.com/eyeliner-tattoo-5080459
I say it all the tome
Amen. That was a terrible cross.
@TTrimble 1126am
Late today and have only sped-read comments but I did not notice any replies to you about YOU DO. It is not a reply to "Oh, is that so?". It is a question meaning the same thing when the original statement begins with I think, believe, want.
Clue for HEADSORTAILS was brilliant. HEADSWILLROLL was juicy.
@albatross shell
Thanks, but I knew that. My opinion remains the same.
Lucy says "Good Grief" a lot to Charlie Brown, much more so than "You Blockhead." I didn't have any Down answers in that part of the grid yet, and GOOD GRIEF fits in that space, so I confidently wrote it in, wondering where that term might find four outlets (TEARS OF JOY, maybe?) elsewhere in the puzzle. The word 'frequent' in the clue is misleading; the word 'occasional' would've been much more apt.
Fine. Just fine. It could have been better but it could have been worse. Consequently I rate it NOTSOBAD.
I just noticed I fell for the trap at VIV-LEVI. Like many others, I too had VIc-LEcI.
STAGE TOLERANCE
HALLE, it's NOTSOBAD,
ASTO what YOUDO in bed,
HEADSORTAILS that YOU had,
PERSEVERE, don't YOUBLOCKHEAD.
--- NIKI BIRIYANI
Not thrilled with this one. The Indian dish needed every cross, and I too guessed at the vowel for NIK_. Correctly--but shouldn't have had to. Post-solve, I looked up 38d in my Scrabble dictionary, and it came up BIRYANI, with no alternates listed. Not good.
The "head" game was predictable. Best thing about the puzzle was the long acrosses that weren't involved in the theme. These make the solve NOTSOBAD, and that applies to DOD HALLE as well, so I guess we'll go with a par. You know: TOLERANCE.
Fatal square indeed. NIKo killed me. However not reading back over the down answer, I still had a pANSY in there so DNF anyway. Liked seeing PINHEAD; Zippy is one of my favorite strips.
HALLE Berry, yeah baby. HEADSORTAILS?
Still SHAKINGMYHEAD over a rare DNF.
Count me in as well among the surprising number of commenters today who had a glimpse of Michelangelo's Pietà from the moving platform at the 1964 New York World's Fair. And to be honest, that's about all I remember from the 64 fair which, though NOTSOBAD, IMHO wasn't nearly as good as either Expo 67 in Montreal or Expo 86 in Vancouver.
Among the few Spanish words I know is GATO from the nickname El Gato given to longtime MLB player Andrés Galarraga in tribute to his HEADy defensive skills at 1B.
Only DICEY area today was caused by wrongly assuming the director's name to be NIKE. BIREYANI certainly passed my smell (and taste) test.
HEADing off to watch some Olympic replays from overnight.
I triumphed over this one, but had to have a lot of TOLERANCE along the way.
Starting with the clue, "plantlike growth held up by gas-filled bladders." Just like I was saying the other day...a preponderance of gas-filled bladders.
A good guess on the director and Indian dish made my day.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
The HEADs ROLLed right through this one. .
Best of probably anyone’s accomplishments are Helen Keller’s capacity to PERSEVERE and her commitment to TOLERANCE.
Have to say I’m always a bit bothered when Lucy calls Charlie a “BLOCKHEAD". Not very nice.
Am still SHAKING MY HEAD over VIc / LEcI instead VIV / LEVI.
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