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Mexican poet Juana de la Cruz / MON 9-27-21 / River of forgetfulness in myth / One of Haiti's two official languages / Each as in the price of balloons
Monday, September 27, 2021
Constructor: Zachary David Levy
Relative difficulty: No idea (I solved this one ... well, see below)
Theme answers:
- POLE VAULT (17A: Olympic event which the world record stands at a little over 20 feet)
- PENN AND TELLER (23A: Magic duo with a 20+ year act in Las Vegas)
- DAYLIGHT SAVINGS (37A: "Spring forward" and "fall back" plan)
- BOTTLE DEPOSIT (50A: Added cost of buying a soda)
Doña Inés de Asuaje y Ramírez de Santillana, better known as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz[a]OSH (12 November 1648 – 17 April 1695) was a Mexican writer, philosopher, composer and poet of the Baroque period, and Hieronymite nun. Her merit as a true master of the Spanish Golden Age gained her the nicknames of "The Tenth Muse" or "The Phoenix of America",[2] for she was probably the most accomplished author of the entire history of the Spanish Americas, and a flame that rose from the ashes of "religious authoritarianism". (wikipedia)
• • •
This is why I have no idea what the actual (relative) difficulty of the puzzle was—I had to solve and enter answers in this very bizarro way. Felt like it would've been easy under normal solving conditions, but that's just a guess. This is what I get for having *two* drinks (after running 8.5 miles earlier in the day) and then telling myself, "it's fine, I can solve and blog the Monday puzzle in the morning." Bah. Whatever, if the puzzle site is gonna go out on any day, Monday is the day for it to happen, so I've decided to count myself lucky, actually.
The fill is a little creaky (ANKA EMUS ESSO OVO EFILE APOP LEER OCHRE DYS etc.), with only SELF-PITY providing any real zing (3D: "Woe is me" feeling). But you go so fast on Monday that you're probably not likely to care too much about the non-fresh fill, given that the theme basically works and the theme answers are sufficiently grabby. I gotta get to work now. Bye.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. Happy 18th anniversary to my wife, Penelope, without whom etc.
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50 comments:
I guess we have two different threads to discuss this puzzle. All I want to say is - this was a new NY Times Monday record for me.
Bright cluing with only one ugh at 59D. An OK puzzle.
I suppose that in NYC some restaurants advertise taco Tuesdays. We don't have them in San Francisco but tacos are big here. A local food critic says that they are our most popular fast food.
I suppose that it isn't correct, but people I talk to say DAYLIGHTSAVINGS with an S.
Duplicate Alert (posted same comment in the original thread):
I had the same reaction as @Rex to the SAVINGS (plural) but found this, on which most grammar mavens seem to agree: "Daylight-saving time (singular saving) is technically the correct version: the practice is saving daylight. Still, daylight-savings time (with the plural savings) is so commonly used that it’s become an accepted variant of daylight-saving time."
The grammar mavens, while accepting the plural as correct, do recommend using the singular in formal writing in order to keep the pedants at bay.
Duplicate alert (posted same comment in the original thread):
eFILE could have been a themer. And staTEN, I suppose.
One HUGE nit: It’s DAYLIGHT SAVING, not SAVINGs. One of those things that really grates on my ear, like saying offsides instead of offside, or going the other way, bicep when you mean biceps.
Like @LMS, I can never remember whether EDT and EST are winter and summer or vice versa. And always misspell ATilLA.
Spot on Monday offering, likely to build the confidence of newer solvers and introduce them to the concept of theme. Also introducing humor in cluing, question mark clues, spoken clues, analogy clues, and clues that signal abbreviations.
There was a passel of given names: LEIF, LUIS, EDGAR, INES, STEPH, VAN, ART, GAL, and PENN, and the cross of ROTATE and BOTTLE reminded me of an old game that I wonder if teens still play.
The grid had a bright feel, had APOP to it. It kept my interest and left me smiling. Thanks, Zachary!
My five favorite clues from last week
(in order of appearance):
1. Alternative to white (3)
2. Valuable carriers (7)(4)
3. What's not to like? (4)(5)
4. It's full of fiber (4)
5. Funny business? (7)
RYE
ARMORED CARS
BÊTE NOIRE
LINT
STANDUP
if by ten-speed one refers to a bicycle, they ain't ten gears they be 7: five at the back and 2 in the front. yes, that makes for 10 *speeds*. I suspect, but have never torn one down, that auto gear boxes work in a similar manner. I know for a fact the those big mother fuckers that bend in the middle and go chuff-chuff, are built the same way: a Low Range shifter and a Gear Shifter. last I checked most had 12 speeds, let's go look shall we... https://www.smart-trucking.com/18-speed-transmission/
that's a 18, with a 3 way 'front' set.
NYTXW website was down? Buy the newspaper! It won't kill you to read the rest of it - while holding the actual paper in hand - and risk getting a little newsprint stuck on your fingers.
Medium. Smooth and spot on for a Monday. Jeff gave it POW (FYI, yesterday’s POW was for last week). Liked it.
@bocamp - Croce’s Freestyle #648 was easy on the Croce scale or about a medium NYT Saturday. Good luck!
A nice Monday with just enough bite to make it a little bit of a challenge for new solvers but not enough to be discouraging. I did not know the magic act with 20+ years in Vegas, but then it’s been that long since I was there. A very clever way to work the TELLER part into the grid.
I always say DAYLIGHT SAVINGS, adding the S with or without the “time.” I have spent a fortune in repairs on my rental property this year and hopefully my EFILE will show a refund IN THE BANK for a change.
Are there still places that pay a BOTTLE DEPOSIT? It used to be a way for kids to make money. It wasn’t much of a profitable business for me however since my mother seldom bought any type of soda. I always envied one of my cousins whose father worked for the Coca-Cola distributor and was the source of an endless supply of empties. Needless to say, her comic book collection was far superior to mine.
Did you know that if you try to make a theme out of POLE, PENN, DAYLIGHT, and BOTTLE, you won't have a lot of luck? Maybe I'm used to having the theme part of a themer show up first. Anyway, it made the revealer a nice surprise.
Actually did know Sor INES de la Cruz. Always nice to run into obscure trivia that rings the memory bell.
Thought this was a great Monday. Extra smooth for us old hands and slightly crunchy for beginners, but fun for everyone. Nice job, ZDL. Zippy, Doable, Liked it a lot.
Anyone else think yesterday's Acrostic was a real winner? Just hard enough, and interesting stuff all over.
Agree with @Lewis 10:17. After POLE VAULT and PENN AND TELLER, I paused to consider what the theme might be...and came up empty. But then the ensuing SAVINGS told me we were headed for the BANK. Nice reveal. I just wished the DEPOSIT could have had less to do with the realm of money, though I see it would be hard to clue something having to do with, say, mines or a river delta.
I'm hoping @GILL I. will tell us what happens when LEIF, LUIS, and ATTILA walk into a bar.
Oops! Forgot to say happy anniversary to Rex and Penelope and may you have many more. Also a belated happy birthday to “the girl.” Ella I believe it is? You ladies could be twins.
@BigSteve - For the vast majority of the country, "Buy the newspaper" is not possible. For most the rest of the country, "Buy the newpaper" is only possible before 9:00 AM. For most (80% +) people who have subscriptions, they have digital subscriptions. You may as well yell "Buy a faster horse" at someone who was late to work, as relevant to todays world as your comment was.
I'm having a hard time deciding what I think of the SE corner. Is the GNUS-EMUS crossing the worst crossing of crosswordese plurals in history or the best? Does the crossing have a traffic cop or a traffic signal? Add to that another greenish paint POC NFLTEAMS answer (future franchise names in the international expansion of the nfl- gnus, emus). Plus the OKS O dook plural.
Question for @Anoa: There seems to be an effort to avoid double POCs lately with stuff like the DYS-ENTERS crossing. Is this really an improvement? In this case I'd say by a hair because DYS is a three letter answer.
Joaquin Alert (see above)
The New Yorker puzz occasionally pops up a cartoon from the 1920s poking fun at the word Gnu in crosswords. Finally I see it in the wild.
Hogan crossing Hovel was nice. It would be fun to experience the former but the airport hotel last night was more the latter. Premium price with a disabled thermostat, no stopper for the tub, and .. oh never mind. Enough with the Self Pity already.
Are there still Bottle Deposits? If I round up a few Nehi bottles, can I walk to the grocery store and get some penny candy? Will the grocer be listening to Paul Anka on his green transistor radio? I'd as lief be studying Lief again, which would've been around that same time.
Speaking of time, I ignore Daylight Savings time now that I'm semi-retired. I set the clocks but adjust meal and bed times to keep it level. My tiny act of rebellion.
@bigsteve46:
hard to do when the newsstand is devoid of the paper. here in a sh!thole county of CT (closer as the crow flies to NYC than Binghamton), it's hit or miss. it appears that NYT 'hires' delivery critters for little or no money and turnover is constant. if you're outside a moderately sized town, with spotty GPS, delivery is mostly miss until they figure out where your house is. then they get sick of it, and a new delivery starts the cycle over again.
why Binghamton would suffer that fate, being a moderately sized City (48,000, urban of 158,000, and metro of 247,000 according to the wiki), is a puzzle. so to speak. could be that NYT has shuttered most or all of its satellite printers; seem to recall reading that some years ago, so trucking up to Binghamton could be late some days, so they just don't bother.
according to this 2018 NYT story ( https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/05/insider/times-printing-plants-delivery.html ), they buy time on other newspapers' printers (27 total, including owned plants) rather than on owned satellite plants. I think they used to have owned satellites, but that could well be decades ago.
there are 10 states still with bottle deposit. not surprising, all Blue. let's go see...
"These states are: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon, and Vermont."
-- https://www.industryweek.com/the-economy/regulations/article/22008100/why-are-there-so-few-states-with-bottle-bill-laws
well, may be not Iowa so much. I wonder why? they're so Right Wingnut.
Duplicate alert:
So here's my account of this puzzle. In sum and on balance, it didn't really hold my interest that much.
My biggest decision was whether I needed an "R" from LEER to get OCHRE or an "E" from OGLE to get OCHER.
I did wonder whether "treated maliciously" was going to be SPIT AT, but it turned out to be SPITED. Which is, of course, better.
ETA Pi is a ridiculous "punny fraternity name", but at least it skirts the airport clue. So there's that.
Nothing especially bad about this puzzle. But nothing especially good about it either. Very meh.
For those grammar sticklers (I are one!), you should know that if you are using the entire phrase with the word 'time' at the end, then 'saving' is singular: daylight saving time.
However, if you are shortening it colloquially, then the 's' is on there: daylight savings.
I absolutely blew through this without even reading a bunch of the down clues, then ended with a DNF - actually a run thru the alphabet - down in the SW where two proper names crossed at a letter that could've been several things.
STEPH is completely unknown to me, as are most pro athletes and if I ever knew the river of forgetfulness, I forgot it. Ah, well.
What original thread? Can I get there?
Also every time I think I have OVA OVUM down pat a OVI, OVU, or OVO shows up. How does that happen?
@TTrimble (10:34 AM - blog version 1) 👍 for 0 yd
Hands up for ENTERS OCHER, and ditto on the 'rookie mistake'.
@jae (10:27 AM)
Thx, on it! 🤞
___
td pg 5 (1 hr.) (changing up the plan slightly today; will do occasional 5-min. sessions on the remaining words)
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Fast and easy with a good theme, just right for Monday. Love GNUS crossing EMUS.
No worries Rex: you had to try out those coupe glasses!
***Dupe Alert*** (reposted from the earlier thread)
Not a bad Monday. One of the few things I furrowed my eyebrows quizzically over was KAL, but I see the cluer's quandary, that the OBVI KAL PENN was precluded by PENN AND TELLER. Hence, a dog food I never heard of.
Rookie misstep putting in OCHer, instead of holding back and seeing whether they'd go all British on me with OCHRE. It's fine -- I don't mind -- I write "aesthetic" and "amoeba". But I think that was my only misstep. I did think to hold back both on INE- (INES or INEz?) and on completing OV-; OVi (as in "oviparous") is also possible, and OVa feels like a close call since it appears in, e.g., "oval" which is directly connected with the egg meaning. But OVO it was. No connection btw with OVERT, whose etymology is a little curious. ***Nerd Alert*** --> OVERT traces back through the Old French (cf. ouvert, "open") to the "Vulgar Latin ōperīre, alteration (influenced by Latin cōperīre, to cover) of Latin aperīre" (to open; cf. "aperture").
Relatively decent but not head-spinning time. More than anything I was glad to see that the NYT sorted things out while I sat in their waiting room reading their articles. Did a little Calcudoku, which I've been trying to turn @bocamp on to behind the scenes. But now I better heave-ho; work lies ahead.
dbyd -1 (missed a 5-letter beginning with T)
yd 0
td pg -2
The Original Thread.
Nice little Monday. I think that Oregon, Washington and California have laws on the books that if one drops Daylight Saving Time entirely, the other two will also. I think the main counter argument is that if God had not wanted Daylight Savings Time, he wouldn’t have created it.
I liked that the 5 vertical answers in the NE corner make a coherent start to a screenplay: SHORE HOVEL AGEOLD MARLEY ENTERS.
Congrats to Zachary David Levy on a solid puzzle and a POW from Jeff Chen.
If it's 11:35 in this thread, it must be 12:35 in the other thread. No wait, it would be 10:35 in the other thread. I think. Is that right? HELP!!!
But he cancelled because of unreliable delivery, which is the weakest last link in getting papers into people’s hands.
I’m annoyed by the “Tex-Mex” cluing for TACOS. “Taco Tuesday” might be an American invention but tacos themselves are not.
@Nancy:
ETA Pi is a ridiculous "punny fraternity name", but at least it skirts the airport clue.
which raises all sorts of issues:
- are the College Greek names segregated by gender, i.e. would Eta Pi be more likely a sorority?
- I suppose 'skirts' means Yes?
- or is this an allusion to the food fight in "Animal House" (funniest movie since Marx Bros.)?
Somebody's got to say it -- TEN partials! Way too many for me. They were all easy, except that I initiall had INEz, and hesitated over NEURAL because I've always heard "neural net," I guess an abbreviation. But they just got boring. And cluing AGGIES by A&M is verging on illegality.
Nice theme though.
There's an old joke about two guys in Africa out for a walk. They see a lion coming toward them, whereupon one kneels down.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm changing into my running shoes."
"That's silly, you can't out run a lion."
"I don't have to outrun the lion, I just have to outrun you."
All leading up to a fun fact: when you see a GNU, it's generally near some zebras. It's a survival trick; gnus can run faster than zebras.
Nice opener MonPuz for the week. Plus, it's POW a la Chenmeister, so it's all downhill from here, accordin to that one source. Altho … yesterday's puz was also the POW … OKSO maybe all the puzs are POWs, this week.
staff weeject pick: DYS. Prefix meat. Actually, several words besides dysfunction start with a DYS-. Not many of em sound like good things to have, tho. Need a clue to brighten up poor old DYS somehow, in future puzs.
{Prefix for the only element that ends in -prosium}, maybe -- but I bet we can do better.
fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: {Org. exploring Mars} = NASA. Right out of the rodeo chute, at 1-A. What else could the answer be? Maybe OSHA, explorin the Mars candy factory?
I found .gov sites that say "Daylight Saving" and others (like the bts.gov one) that say "Daylight Savings".
… SO OK.
Thanx for investin the time with us, Mr. Levy dude. Upon CHECKING it out, it held our INTEREST. etc.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
p.s. @RP who never reads this stuff: M&A musta lucked out, as he always prints off the puz the night before, then solves it the next mornin, aided by the cinnamon rolls + vodka. Then has his usual 8.5-mile run (har), before signin on, here.
Cute fam pic, btw. Happy anniversary, of the second kind.
**gruntz**
My favorite post this morning.
Anonymous (10:23)
@jberg (12:07 PM)
Good joke; I always get a chuckle out of it (I've heard it with bears, tho). Who knew? the GNUs news is new to me. Smart cookies.
___
td pg -4 (one additional 5 min. session resulted in one more word gotten)
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
@Ranfy Miller - I guess it depends on what you mean by “TACO.” More important than whether it’s Aztec, Mexican, Tex-Mex, or American, of course, is whether or not it is a sandwich.
Weird thing I just learned in taking a quick peak at who created the TACO is that TACO Bell is eponymous. Don’t fall on me, I just learned this, too.
Love EFILE. Seems to get easier every year, esp with slips now being automatically loaded.
@jae
Croce's 648 was silky smooth; easiest one I can recall. Somewhere between a NYT Fri-Sat. See you next Mon. :)
___
td pg -3 (another 5 min. sesh, another word down)
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Rex - why DON’T you have the NYT Crossword app?! It’s fantastic: easy to use, always works, it’s all I ever use now.
I love how easy this puzzle was, but with some fun longer words. I flew through this one, which I almost never say about ANY crossword puzzle.
Firesign Theater guys referred to it as “Daylight Slavings Time”, which works just as well for me.
I LOVED seeing LETHE! I knew it because of my love of mythology and a great Star Trek (Original 1966 Series) episode called “Dagger of the Mind”. Captain Kirk - with reluctant and attractive assistant Dr. Helen Noel (they met at a Christmas party, apparently had a ‘fling’) discoverer a new version of The Mad Scientist. An outer space Mental Asylum/Penal Colony Warden, Dr. Adams (James Gregory) has a device that “wipes” peoples minds clean! A cameo by a scary “success” example is Lethe (Suzanne Wasson), who calmly explains to Kirk that she loves her work there, but refuses to talk about her past. Her eerie look and delivery speak volumes to the sadness and danger of men who who work on human minds.
The writers of the episode were definitely up on their mythology, because the name of the penal colony was called “Tantalus”, which of course was the name of the King of Lydia, who offended the gods. His eternal punishment was to be forever up to his neck in water, hungry and thirsty, with fruit hanging from branches just above his head. Whenever he tried to drink the water or eat the fruit, they receded from his reach. Yes, we get the word “tantalize” from sorry old Tantalus (a mythological bookend to Sisyphus and his rock).
@mathgent, I agree with your favorite post today. I often do, but I don't always read anons because some are just here to be nasty. Loved what he knew and how he explained it.
Each combination is a gear. You start out in first gear, then you shift gears, maybe to 2nd gear. Top speed is 10th gear.
That’s even true on a 3-speed, where no one can see the gears. I also suspect if you opened your car transmission, you’d find more gears than the advertised number of speeds, where those speeds are also called “gears”.
LETHE does not belong in a Monday puzzle. I knew it, but not appropriate for a Monday.
Is a HOVEL a "rude" dwelling or a "crude" dwelling?
Not sure how an eighteen year marriage produces a 21 year old daughter. Were they living in sin previously ? Just kidding nobody cares. Best of luck !
I live in Tex-Mex Land---some call it Mex-Tex Land---and believe me, there is no such thing down here as TOCAS Tuesday. Every day is TACOS day. There are lots of local places that make them with a variety of ingredients to go on freshly made tortillas and with sides of freshly made pico de gallo and salsas. They are unfailingly delicious. I think the once a week taco thing must be further al norte.
I've logged many hours on bicycles. I started out as a kid riding a one-speed on a gravel road looking for long-necked beer bottles in the ditch that I could trade in and get some ice cream $ because our county had a BOTTLE DEPOSIT law. (Hi Whatsername @10:38!) Then I graduated to a couple of Schwinn ten-speeds and later a custom built twelve-speed and I'd say that NONE of them had a GEAR as glued at 15 Across. Sprockets, chain, etc., but no GEARs. That's why they are referred to by the number of speeds rather than by the number of gears.
It's always a judgement call Albatross @10:47, but the consensus of the POC committee on this issue is that the key question boils down to "Is the pluralizing S, ES or IES there for convenience only?" Does it just take up space and make it easier to fill the grid? This is often an easy call but there are gray areas and I think you found one there at the end of ENTERS and DYS. Since DYS needs the S to be a viable entry so you could say it's not a POC. The S at end of ENTERS, though, clearly is and its location---where a Down and an ACROSS share a final S---makes it look like a two for one POC. So maybe it rates a POC and a half! But where an AGGIE (33D) and a STARE (55A) both need some letter counting boosting, grid-fill help from a single S, yeah, that's a full-fledged two for oner!
Just happy to see Penn & Teller! I finally got to see them live three or four years back, they're the best.
I'm geezer enough to know that at one time every beverage bottle in every state had a deposit. the reason, of course, was that said deposit was demanded by the bottler, not the damn gummint. it may boggle the mind of younguns, but soda/beer bottles can be made of glass, used, got back to the bottling plant, washed, and REUSED!!! more times than Carter has pills. who wooda thunk of such a thing. really true. the bottlers used the deposit penalty to increase the rate of return.
PR for a Monday. Say no more. (wink wink, nudge nudge)
I used to get hardcopy in our local paper that had the syndicated puzzle, but for some reason the Sundays were concurrent. Then I noticed I'd open the paper, work the crossword, and throw the rest of the paper into the recycling bin and I thought 'what a waste' and eventually subscribed to the puzzles online on an introductory deal.
Speaking of “non-fresh” fill, no GNUS is good news;. The bad news is, this one had GNUS.
OK,SO OBSESS
SEE, I met this GAL INTHEBANK AGAIN,
OVERT LEERs AND EGO caused it:
I tried to TELLER 'bout my SELF AND then
she STARES at my FAT DEPOSIT.
--- KAL VAN LETHE
I had a 4 square inkfest at 55a where my 'keeps watching and watching' was bingES before it became STARES. Funny how that clue TRIPS you up.
Before I SINAI take a PENN in HAND.
For EONS your NOSE was in the corners.
What a GAL!
OK for a Mon-puz.
For me, "ease" or "difficulty" has little to do with the time it takes to solve a puzzle. I just don't "get" racing through for a fast time. It's like having Thanksgiving Dinner in 4 minutes or less. Ugh.
That said, this was a thoughtful Monday offering. Not too hard, not too easy. Just right. Now where's my porridge?
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
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