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Drawing of the body without its skin from the French / SAT 10-23-21 / Online marketing giant with primate in its logo / L.A. jazz venue where Thelonious Monk recorded a live album / Manor house attendant / River with second-largest discharge volume in New World after the Amazon / First sch. to win 100 N.C.A.A. titles / Certain native of the Mideast / Chinmoy onetime India spiritual leader
Saturday, October 23, 2021
Constructor: Sam Ezersky
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
Word of the Day: ÉCORCHÉ (43D: Drawing of the body without its skin, from the French) —
NOUNplural noun écorchés/ˌākôrˈSHā/ /ˌeɪkɔrˈʃeɪ/
A painting or sculpture of a human figure with the skin removed to display the musculature. (lexico)
• • •
Trying to round the corner from the center into the SE corner was rough. Well, at first, it was impossible, despite the fact that I was able to throw GROK down off just the "G" and then immediately get the often-hard-to-parse ST. KITTS (thank you, GROK, for the high-value "K"!). But even with the first three letters of 42- and 43-Down, I just drew a blank. Two blanks. Blank blank. Actually, I guessed that the trucking charge might be CARTAGE (42D: Charge for some truckers), which I then, as now, am pronouncing as if it were a French word. But I really really felt like I was making that up, and that CARTAGE ... what do trucks do if not cart stuff, and why are you charging ... wait ... does "charge" here mean "responsibility"? Trucks are "charged" with "carting" material from place to place? Oof, woof and yikes. What do you mean, "some truckers"? What else do truckers do but transport things in a vehicle (the definition of CARTAGE)!? It's bad enough your word is a weird obscurity, you then want to go wordplaying around with the meaning of "charge"? And alongside [rechecks grid for the umpteenth time] ÉCORCHÉ?? Look, if I can't call ÉCORCHÉ obscure, then nothing is obscure. I don't understand how CARTAGE ÉCORCHÉ is anything but embarrassing. A double obscurity in your longer answers? What a waste of space. I could've taken either of these words on their own, but alongside one another ... that's just constructorial negligence.
There was worse to come, though. This time, the problem was less a fill obscurity problem and much (much) more a cluing problem. A cluing problem that just happens to occur at one of the toughest parts of the grid. I've never heard of the IT CLUB, and I won't be alone on that, but with crosses, ultimately, it's gettable (50A: L.A. jazz venue where Thelonious Monk recorded a live album, with "the"). But about those crosses ... I was lucky to "know" PIECAKEN, but I wonder if that's really a word in most people's vocabulary. Also, ew, gross, is it a pie inside a cake inside a *chicken*!?! Where is the "-en" coming from!? According the the NYT, it's "three types of pie stuffed into a cake," which sounds OK, but the name suggests nothing about "three" and still has the "chicken" part of it left over from TURDUCKEN (whence the name was borrowed by analogy—wow, just noticed TURDUCKEN has "turd" in it ... and people still eat it?). I'm not opposed to your food neologism, it's whimsical and fun, but like MAILCHIMP, it seems potentially exclusionary. Then there's BREVE, which is a fine term, one I think I've seen before, and I certainly wanted BREVE when I was staring at -EVE, but I was not at all certain. I know BREVE primarily as a coffee drink (latte variation with steamed half-and-half instead of steamed milk). As musical terms go, it's definitely on the lesser-known side, so now we've got two ITCLUB crosses that might lock people out (the two with the highest-value letters, too—PIECAKEN gives the you the "C" and BREVE the "B," which are the key elements in parsing ITCLUB). But still, this seems workable. Potentially. And yet.
It turns out the worst (in the sense of actually unforgivable) part of this ITCLUB section is not an answer, but a clue—specifically the clue on FUEL UP (47D: Go from E to F). It's actually a great clue ... but not for this answer. I love the misdirection and general weirdness of the clue—the fact that it looks like maybe it's about musical notes. And I would've really enjoyed it if the answer had been FILL UP, because that is what the clue literally says and so that is what I wrote in. If you go to "F," you fill up. By definition. From "E" empty to "F" full. That's it. FILL UP. Nice clue, I thought ... only to discover that the answer is actually FUEL UP, which does not necessarily convey *filling* up your tank. It's a generic term for getting some gas. Go from E to F—that's a FILL UP. Fill, fill, a thousand times, fill. The "F" means "Full," not "Fuel." Respect your own damn clue. Woof x 1000. I cannot tell you how locked-in FILL UP was. And to think I was mentally *applauding* that clue. I don't know what the term is for that: when you have an answer and you think "that's a great clue for that answer!" only to find out through repeated hacking that your answer is actually wrong and the clue stinks. This is new territory for me, terminologically. Difficulty in puzzles is good, achieving it through obscure trivia is less good, botching your clues is outright bad. I need to get coffee now. Mwah. Cheers.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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120 comments:
First time I've agreed 100% with OFL.
First thing I do is look at who made the puzzle, and over the years, I’ve gotten to know the styles of many constructors, and it colors how I enter a puzzle. When I see Sam’s name, my heart clutches a bit, because I know the puzzle will be tough. I also know that there will be some world class cluing. Finally, I know that with much effort, I’ll complete the puzzle with high respect for Sam’s skill, finesse, and excellence, and that every square will have been wrangled over by Sam to make it the best it can be.
I’m about to start solving, and we’ll see if this holds up. I do like that big ol’ sash sashaying diagonally down the center of the grid…
Okay, done. It was nowhere easy, mind you, but not as hard as I was expecting. Every time I filled in an area, I was surprised, but still waiting for the portcullis to slam down and bog me for a long spell. That never happened, to my astonishment. The southeast put up the most fight, as I wasn’t going to get ST. KITTS, CARTAGE, or especially ECORCHE without sufficient crosses. But, to my continued astonishment, it fell as well.
Oh, I loved filling this in. No portcullis, but hostile checkpoints to pass through all over, where I had to come up with the right password to move on. Finding those answers – cracking those clues – well, that’s the reward of crosswords. Rewarding – there’s the perfect description of this solve.
My favorite clue was [Go from E to F] (world class), and such lovely answers spread about: MASALAS, OIL GLUT, SO BE IT, PIGTAIL, ORINOCO, and the new-to-me but gorgeous ECORCHE. And yes, it is obvious that every square was wrangled over and polished by a master. Thank you, Sam, for this gift!
@rex -- regarding FUEL UP, in the Free Dictionary where they list definitions from a number of dictionaries, the page on FUEL UP has the definition from three dictionaries, all very close to "To fill one's tank with fuel". That works for me; that is, when you go from E to F, you're fueling up.
I grew up in Los Angeles and LA was my home of record in 1964 when Thelonious Monk recorded at the IT CLUB. Still, at 50A I had no clue (so to speak).
Anyone else have this problem? I recently had to fire the GATEMAN for my manor house as he insisted on working ECORCHE .
Finished the north very quickly, then stalled. Started with the threebies in the south, and flubbed two of them: tot before WEE at 58D and use before DIF at 60D. Needed Sergey and Larry to get me home.
@Rex: what do trucks do if not cart stuff? Sometimes they deadhead, running without any cargo to their home base or to pick up their next load.
Art students should know écorché. It’s not so super arcane. It is, however, wonderfully rare in a crossword!
Lots of work to finish this one. Had embryo, then gameTE before ZYGOTE. Took a long time to get a foothold in the NW corner, but SE was last to fall with the CAR_AGE and ECO_CHE - TRI tip took reaching waaay back into the brain and several missteps until it finally hit me
Have heard of the IT CLUB, but only through NPR (probably a Fresh Air interview on the drive home from work)
I am OK with FUEL UP. I would more commonly say FilL UP, but the other is something I have definitely heard. Perhaps it is because I had the U in CLUB before filling in the down that I did not get misdirected as @Rex seems to have been.
Really nice puzzle. Same way Rex knew MAIL CHIMP I knew Live at the IT CLUB cold since I have the vinyl - mainly for Blue Monk. The bitching about FUEL vs. fill is trifling.
Agree that the SE stack was rough but the crosses were all pretty straightforward. Liked APOSTLE and IN A WINK - low points were EMIRATI, PET FEES and I’d go hungry with a single PORK RIB.
I watched the new Dune last night. So cumbersome to gather into a film - I liked it for the most part - but I think the uninitiated will still struggle with it.
Enjoyable Saturday solve.
No wordplay required for CARTAGE. "Cartage fee" is a thing, and it is a charge, in the sense of a fee.
I had DEALERS so FUEL UP was fairly obvious to me. Also, weirdly, FilL UP is more often a noun for me (well, not anymore, my car doesn’t use gas). “the gas gauge is nearly on E. Time for a FilL-UP.” FUEL UP is only ever a verb for me.
So, was Rex joking or has he never heard CARTAGE actually used? Per Merriam-Webster, the action of or rate charged for carting. Maybe if he had thought of “corkage” the answer would have come to him sooner.
Solve was mostly the same as Rex, easy north, more challenging south. IT CLUB and ÉCORCHÉ were totally reliant on the crosses and I really wanted UV-a rays for some reason instead of UV LIGHT, so that slowed me down. But even with those slowdowns this felt more like a Friday than a Saturday. Maybe because the PPP is only 19%. There may have been Saturdays this low in the past that I didn’t tally, but this is the first time I recall getting below 20%. As a result, I liked this way way way more than Rex.
Thx Sam, for what may be the toughest Sat. puz ever.
Very hard.
Got PG, ORINOCO (sp?), PORK (?), UCLA, I HOPE & ZYGOTE. The rest of the West Coast, Rockies, Texas, pretty much nada, except for TV ANTENNA, FILL UP, NEUF (sp?) (and not even sure about these).
The rest of the puz may be ok; not sure about ECORCHE, tho.
I'll be at this one for as long as it takes.
Over and out. :)
@okanaganer 👍 for 3 0's in a row :)
@Eniale 3:42 PM
Thx for sharing your SB results. :)
___
yd 0
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Hey look we have an actual late week puzzle. It felt relieving to encounter some real resistance. The west half was low hanging fruit but the east had some teeth. Mostly this was due to fighting my way past ECORCHE and over coming a couple of write overs. I had STAR/SHAD and TIRING/TAXING. The latter is your run of the mill type but the former is a little more interesting. I misread the 12D clue as being the 21D clue. STAR worked perfectly with APOSTLE and EACH so it was a truly insidious write over.
While TIRING was wrong it still gave me another way into the NE and once I got ISTINK I suddenly no longer STuNK and all became clear.
ECORCHE is the kind of word I hope to encounter in a late week puzzle. It's exotic and completely unknown to me. I wish a certain constructor would put that in her grid and smoke it.
yd -0 (unusually easy, was it in honor of RW?)
Actually FUELUP was brilliant.
I had MAINACT instead of LEADACT, so the SE corner was a train wreck for me.
Note to newbies: When rex says it's medium-challenging, it's pretty hard. So yeah.
@ MAXXPUZZ I would say that something that is pretty much only the province of art students is pretty arcane. So I'm with rex on this one, but . . . . it's a Saturday, so it's supposed to be tough!
Hard puzzle (hello MAILCHIMP, hello ECORCHE, hello ITCLUB), but my real slowdown came with a horrible sequence on the very first clue (if you start with the downs). I had POPQUIZ and GROUCHY to get the PG, and without reading the cue carefully, I confidently dropped in PGrated. Saw that mistake and corrected it with PGmovie, with oil for "sometimes found in a well." Realized it was going to be INK, so very confidently changed to PGvIdeo! Arrrgh. Finally got to PGFILMS (seems a bit lofty for most Disney fare).
The FiiL/FUEL exchange may be the greatest Rex/Lewis moment ever! (ha)
Anyhow, if you aren't into PIECAKEN (ridiculous word) for your end-of-November feast, you might go with today's "hidden diagonal word," which can be GROKked by solving this clue: Popular Mexican dessert. (4 letters, an answer with a bit of Friday/Saturday flavor)
Loved it.
________
Hated it.
And since I solve top to bottom, I'm left with feeling the latter, which only intensified when I then read the byline.
🧠🧠🧠🧠
-🎉🎉 (that's a minus two party favors)
I’ve only ever known a PIECAKEN as a cherpumple- cherry, pumpkin, and apple pies inside a cake. I’d like to see that one in a puzzle someday. Also, I’ve had a cherpumple and it wasn’t bad haha.
I kept seeing CARTAGE as CART AGE and was thinking how much it stunk that people were charged fees for the age of their..carts? I also need coffee.
Rex, I was totally with you until your long digression on FUEL UP. What does the UP indicate? That adverb is important and suggests the idea of E to F. Like you, I was thinking E to F was going to be something musical, but that was one clue I did enjoy once I got it. Never heard of ECORCHE or PIECAKEN the latter of which is the most ridiculous word I have had the displeasure of running across in a while. This puzzle had a few nice moments, but for me its flaws outweigh those few moments of delight.
I liked FUELUP, but I agree that the SE corner was hard. SALT opened the whole thing up for me, and then I sailed through, because I didn’t second guess CARTAGE and after I got SALT, I easily got the crosses with LEADACT and UVLIGHT. I thought PETFEES was dumb and GATEMAN was weak. Never seen any use of either in real life or puzzles.
Pretty good overall, and I finished 10+ minutes faster than my Saturday average.
MailChimp is a commonly known entity and service.
Cartage is very well known to anyone involved in any way with any actual work of getting stuff where it need to go.
And the It Club is more obscure but known.
Piecaken was brand new for me but Gateman got me there.
Come on, people. It's a crossword puzzle on Saturday. It's supposed to be hard. Just be glad you finished and made it here.
Mixed feelings about this one. Looking at the grid, it seems like I should’ve liked it more. Enjoyed the challenges and some of the longer entries - EMOTICON snuggling up to MAILCHIMP has a contemporary feel. Happy to learn ORINOCO and ÉCORCHÉ, but the cost, the PRICES, were MCING, NMEX, and DERE. Those just left a bad taste in my mouth, along with ATE. Never heard anyone say “I ATE and ran.” And please don't serve me anything called a PIECAKEN.
As a professional musician, I can confirm @Rex’s observation that BREVE is lesser-known.
I liked the PETUNIA/PIGTAIL cross - sounds like a spinster librarian, Miss Petunia Pigtail. Oh, Petunia Pig - I’d forgotten about that cartoon. Never was a big fan, but that makes the cross even better.
Today’s birthday composer is Ned Rorem, known primarily for his vocal music. Here’s Pippa’s Song, which seems fitting for today. Don’t know if she has pigtails like Pippi’s.
I was trying to come up with another example of -AGE meaning “fee” and M-W comes to the rescue with postAGE. Five different meanings for the suffix -AGE seems excessive and so very English.
I really wish I had timed the solve. This was easy-medium at most here, and more like very easy (for a Saturday)- easy. I solved with the end of the baseball game on and it took an inning or so (so definitely less than an hour - Thank Gof the Sawks are out. I didn’t think they were capable of finishing a game in less than four hours, but since they were shut out it only took three and a half) while keeping an eye on the game. For me this was comparable to yesterday’s puzzle, which so many found too easy.
I don’t think I have ever seen an ad for MAILCHIMP. However, the company that supports the vast majority of local ultimate leagues’ and clubs’ websites supports MAILCHIMP to manage announcements, so easy peasy here. Fortunately, I never had to deal with those elements of the web page. The amount of now useless tech knowledge I have is truly depressing. I once had to know how to use GroupWise and Job Control Language. There’s a smattering of SQL floating about not to mention some knowledge of how to use the SPSS version that existed 15 years ago. I currently use two different word processing programs, neither of which is an improvement on ClarisWorks from the early 1990’s (I quietly laugh when some young person raves about how wonderful GoogleDocs is - the very definition of crap software that does nothing particularly well). Anywho - Mostly glad that I’ve never needed to learn how to make MAILCHIMP work and add to the software knowledge that will be obsolete before I die cluttering the old gray cells.
Ummm. Pippy Longstocking did not have PIGTAIL. She had BRAID. Look at any picture anywhere and talk to any person who has ever done the hair of a child.
Once I hit that I was done done done.
DERE seemed like a classist trope.
Wasn’t even worth the time to finish!
Pippy does not have PIGTAIL. She has BRAID. Ask any person who has ever read any of the books or done a child’s hair.
And DERE is a cheap classist trope IMO. An Anime Archetype would have been a harder, more sophisticated, kinder clue.
I've been in the music business for decades and I've never heard of a headliner being referred to as the "lead act." Lame.
Fastest Saturday in a while for me.
Everything south-southwest of the center strip was harder than north, but other than piecaken, no real complaints.
Mail chimp is all over the place as an email service.
I wonder how many people know of Chinmoy? Maybe real crossworders know it, but I’m not one.
Loved E to F.
Overall, fun clueing and fewer icky proper names than usual in Times puzzles.
I’ve lived in New Mexico for almost 40 years, and not once, ever, have I abbreviated it as NMEX. I have never seen it abbreviated that way. Google NMEX, and see how many hits there are for that standing for New Mexico.
Thought I'd never get going on this one, but eventually did, and chipped away until I had a finished and correct product which felt like I had accomplished something, just the kind of Saturday I like.
Thought of ORINOCO right away but forgot to write it in and went elsewhere so was delighted when it finally turned out to be right.
Biggest problem was in the FUELUP area, as I had the F from NEUF and was going nowhere. Finally I saw FRETUP! Huzzah! And me a guitar player, I was thinking. What took me so long? The U from CLUB became obvious eventually and my self-congratulations came to an end.
FAKELOG made more sense to me than FIRELOG, and ......to eat a peach? would have been a nice clue for33A. Hand up for being introduced to ECORCHE and PIECAKEN. Add MAILCHIMP too.
Nice one, SE, tough but fair. Strenuous Exercise but Substantial Enjoyment on finishing. Thanks for all the fun.
Mostly easy, but bogged down a lot in the south due to a bunch of unknowns and some weird clues.
Unknowns PIECAKEN, IT CLUB, BREVE, TRI, ECORCHE.
Weird clue for IN A WINK. Why not simply clue as “quickly”?
Otherwise, just not enjoyable for me. One of those days when the phrases completely failed to land:
“Is this such a good idea” does not equal “do I dare”.
‘Knock on wood’ does not equal ‘I hope’.
‘Ate and ran’ I’ve heard only in the present tense (eat and run).
Clue for DERE was flat out stupid.
On to the xword with fresh eyes. 🤞
___
td done at g-15 (same as the xword, toughest ever)
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Same experience as Rex with the top being a perfect Saturday. Tough but fair with interesting words and clues, then the wheels just fell off the bottom. Was right with Rex's writeup until the FUELUP long paragraph.
- FilLUP could be for eating - "Don't fill up on bread at or you won't have any room left for TRI-tips." FUELUP is totally in the language.
- my problem with the SE was all three crosses are kind of green-painty. mainACT is much better than LEADACT. I had "adopted" for PETFEES. I was thinking "charges" as responsibilities for that clue, like Rex with the FUELUP.
- Having studied many years of French and being married to a Francophone, it is rare to see a French word in a xword I don't know. My dad was an art professor, so I guess that apple missed me when it fell off the tree.
- with ECHORCHE and those green paint crosses, I stopped trusting the constructor, and didn't get some things I should have.
- ITCLUB refused to come into view.
- hands up for "professional musician not seeing BREVE very often". It really only shows up in early music. Standard notation convention has cut all those early notations in half, so it takes a while to GROK out what is going on rhythmically in that earlier system.
- GATEMAN and PIECAKEN didn't allow for easy entry into the SW. Plus NICEONE and INAWINK were vague enough that they could have gone in other directions.
- If I see a flower from x family, I still assume it will be something I don't know, so I looked it up and was disappointed that it was something I could have solved. Probably flashbacks from my early solving days in the '90s. I did learn that potatoes and petunias are both from the nightshade family.
- I was thinking or charge as responsibility for 42D, so with CAR****, wanted a lift or some other word for those trucks that carry cars down the highway. CARTAGE makes way more sense and is something I know, GRRRRR.
- With solve hindsight in place, I could have remembered that Halides are salts, so halophobia would be fear of salt. S_L_ wanted to be fear of singing a SOLO with all the musical and faux-musical clues in that area.
- Doesn't Pippi Longstocking have PIGTAILs plural? One on each side? Weird that the clue would only refer to one of the pair. Also made me not trust the puzzle.
After all this, I am looking at the puzzle and have more admiration that it would seem. I loved SOBEIT, OILGLUT, MASALA, APOSTLE, ISLES and STKITTS (puzzpair), INAWINK once I got it.
I pretty much agree with Rex. I almost flew through the top (on a Saturday!) and then hit many roadblocks on the bottom, especially in the SE corner, made much worse for me by having GRab and STbarTS and refusing to give them up. I don’t listen to podcasts but I knew MAILCHIMP because, I dunno, it’s just something I run into from time to time. Rex is probably right on fill vs FUEL but it didn’t bother me at the time. But except for a few blips and dings, this was fun.
Inexact, Lead Act, Enact. What, no React? No Actuate, Actuary, or Act One? Slacker. Go big or go home.
Ecorech and NMex? Rlleay?
Red Hair and Pig Tail have the same number of letters. But she has PigtailS. As a feature, it's not, "Pippy has Pigtail." She has Pigtails. Unless it's, "Pippy sports the Pigtail look."
Piecaken. Kill me now. Wait, I just laughed. Now I like it's massive looniness. I can't wait to see happens to greenbean casserole.
You don't need to know Mail Chimp because you feel smug about listening to podcasts (why?). It's contact management and mass emailing software. Who's feelin' smug now.
Filled it in and it was it wasn't pretty. Needed to check it. It was a learning experience though and I always appreciate that.
Goodness, everyone is grouchy today! It’s Saturday, not Sunday or Monday— what did you expect? A piece of piecracken, perhaps?
No, I didn’t know ecorche, but I do now, and won’t forget! Thank you, Sam Ezersky, for a tough. ut very satisfying puzzle!
I kind of start Saturdays with more trepidation than anticipation, and puzzles like this one are why. They're just hard, still. Shooting out of the NW bolstered my spirits, but than ran into trouble everywhere. CARTAGE, works, I think because it applies more to short haul trucking than long haul trucking, so that was fine. ECOwhatever was impossible. ITCLUB crossing PIECAKEN was horrible, and pretty sure I don't want any of the latter. Kept tElLERS before DEALERS for a long time. This was TAXING, with my questions of surprise being more of the WTF? variety. But it did lead to some interesting reading on river discharge volume, and I had no idea that there were so many with more than the Mississippi, so that was fun.
LOL @Z, really? You actually prefer having Houston? Can't bear the Astros, tho do love Dusty Baker. Crushing end for me.
Hey All !
Managed to GROK the entire puz, with only the SE undone. Impatience set in, as I just couldn't figure the three Across 7's, or ECORCHE. Had ECOR___, with the C as a possible for ACT, but a big Huh? for surrounding fill. Did have ITCLUB and NEU_, but not being up on my French numbers (Spanish numbers I know), wasn't sure if it was the terrific F, or an R or a T.
So, I typed in ECOR into good ole Goog search, and it got me ECORCHE. That had me finally see the GHT, which got me UVLIGHT, then that got me LEAD ACT (which went through star, hEAD), and finally FUEL UP (which until that last F, was thinking like Rex that it was a musical clue). And then Happy Music.
So, I'm begrudgingly taking this as a win, although there is a niggling in the ole brain that keeps yelling "cheater!" It was only a tiny cheat...
Is PET FEES a thing? Had EMIRATe in NE, which got me eSTINK. Clue for that would have to be "Cry of online ineptitude". Har. Managed to catch that and change the e to an I. (Except after C.) 😁
TVANTENNA. Talk about a throwback. Anyone under probably 35 had never been privy to such a thing. We had a good size Rabbit Ears on the roof of our house growing up. Can't recall the actual "ears" on the TV set. We were living the good life! Then cable came out, and wow! Followed by MTV (which was actually a station that played Music Videos, kids), then HBO, which meant you had more money than struggling families, as it was quite costly at first. Then CineMax, which one (boys only?) would watch scrambled up hoping to get a glimpse of a boob. Ah, youth!
Ahem. Anyway, nice puz. Ezersky is a busy lad with all his puzs everywhere. Must be TAXING.
Neat palindrome is the identifier on the 63A attendant, GATEMAN NAMETAG.
NICE ONE. (EMOTICON)
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
NICE ONE, Sam Ezerky! You began it with the trickiest, most wonderful clue for POP QUIZ at 1A -- crossed with "standard Disney fare" which could have been anything. I have no idea what the "discharge volume" of a river might be (as contrasted with its length, width, depth, currents, or any of those things I actually have heard of) -- so I realized I had to go elsewhere for a toehold and that this would be a "keep the faith" puzzle. That is: Keep the faith that by going elsewhere, I would eventually be able to solve the pesky NW.
Some hiccups along the way of this fun ride. GENE before LORE for "Pass it on". N.CAR before N.MEX for wherever those stupid roads meet. (I don't drive, so I should know that?) And the N.CAR happened because of the "R" of TIRING before TAXING for "strenuous".
What's with those "EN" hybrid dishes? Is PIECAKEN any relation to TURDUCKEN? Who coins these, anyway? They are so strange!
A smooth, well-clued puzzle with no junk -- and a pleasure to solve. Just look at the marvelous clue for INEXACT at 39D. Sam is such a pro. (Although I do nominate ECORCHE as perhaps the oddest clue/answer I've seen in a really long time. I'm still trying to envision it.)
The bottom half of this clown puzzle is full of the same obscure bullshit those of us who also do the Spelling Bee have come to expect from Ezersky. Stunned he didn't include callaloo. Not one whit of satisfaction in getting this done - just anger in wasting 10 minutes of my Saturday on this self-indulgent crap.
I liked it; knew CARTAGE, and found ECORCHE interesting -- I've certainly seen examples, just never knew the name. As for MAILCHIMP, @Rex just isn't obsessive enough -- if you get a mass email, it often says "powered by MAILCHIMP" at the bottom.
Great misdirect on RAG -- I saw it fit, but thought, "no, that's not cheap paper -- rag paper is the most expensive kind!" I had to come back to it through crosses before I realized he was talking about newspapers. Makes me wonder how that usage evolved.
But SHAD? I know them as a) the source of delicious roe, and b) a gamefish that you try to take on a fly when they run up the river -- only they don't do that much anymore because most of the rivers have been dammed. We're currently seeking superfund money to get the PCBs off the bottom of our local river so that the dams can be removed, restoring the SHAD run. Do people really use them for bait?
As a recorder player of early music, I see BREVEs all the time; I played one yesterday. But my mind misinterpreted the clue as being two whole steps, so I wanted to put in "third." Wouldn't work with the crosses, fortunately.
Did anyone else put in currieS before MASALAS? That was fun.
A word about risotto, harking back a few days. First, I was definitely wrong about stirring. But it is true that if you stir the rice in the oil enough so that each grain is coated in oil, you only have to stir once when you first add the stock. It was interesting to read about others' methods.
Wow, the wonders of a good night's sleep. The remainder of the puz fell quickly.
So, bottom line: not the toughest Sat. ever, but very challenging, nevertheless.
Pippy Longstocking's PIGTAIL was the key to unlocking all the missing parts.
DEALERS changed FilL UP to FUEL UP.
What a great adventure this was! :)
@puzzlehoarder (8:20 AM) 👍 0 yd
___
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
I finally got a foothold where INK crosses PORKRIB. That started an enjoyable (and challenging) trek through the grid, ending in the SE where I needed to look up BREVE.
INKwells reminded me of seventh grade. That's when we went from writing in pencil to writing in pen. Our desktops held little tubs of ink in the upper-right corner. After we finished practicing the Palmer Method on lined foolscap, we would dry the nibs with our pen wipers.
I'm coming close to violating Joaquin's Dictum, but I don't like "Likely M.V.P. candidate" for ALLSTAR. "Likely" doesn't belong there. I also don't like the clues at 23A and 27A.
"Cherpumple." According to Fellow Earthling (8:47), this is a cherry pie, a pumpkin pie, and an apple pie stacked up and covered with frosting to become a PIECAKEN. These desserts are common enough to have a name? Where?
I once saw the Piecaken inventor on a morning show and I wondered if it would be too many flavors mixing together for my tastes. Wouldn't it take the fun out of sitting at the table with your family and friends and debating which dessert to share next? That's the very essence of Thanksgiving. On the other hand it sounds like perfect pandemic dessert. Precut it and no need to pass it around along with all our germs.
Anyone else have the problem of holding onto an incorrect response way too long even when you start getting an inkling it's not right? I had curries before masalas, St Barts before St Kitts, and footman before gateman. Once I let them go, the puzzle worked itself out.
Happy Saturday All!
Very tough but not a total loss. There were some places where I got a nice foothold but that was largely offset by areas like the SE and answers like ECORCHE. And den DERE were the WTF moments: MCING? IN A WINK? PIECAKEN? If I had to eat that for dessert following a TURDUCKEN, I wouldn’t bother with Thanksgiving. A Twinkie and a can of Spam would be more appetizing.
After going to FUEL UP my TANK this week, I would sure welcome an OIL GLUT. [Insert GROUCHY EMOTICON here.]
It’s a perfectly lovely lazy Saturday morning in my neck of the woods. Thunderstorms moving through with much-needed rain. Wishing all a safe and pleasant weekend.
Saturdays should be special. Difficult but ultimately fair when completed. The constructor should not have to resort to non-words and variant spelling. which leads us into todays entries : "mcing","gateman", "nmex", "leadact", "ecorche" and "piecaken". Let's throw a fire log on the, uh, fire, and grill up a pork rib ! Then maybe a smore for the wee'uns.
Easy. Sightly tougher than yesterday’s but still easy. Only ECORCHE, ITCLUB, and MAILCHIMP were WOEs, the rest was midweek easy. In truth, I’ve also never heard of PIECAKEN but it was highly inferable. A fair amount of sparkle, liked it.
Well, I STINK.
First time in I don’t know how long that I’ve had to resort to Google to finish - to get IT CLUB and finish the super-hard South. So much down there that I have never heard of, combined with clues that were very ambiguous. I know, that’s what a Saturday is supposed to be. Just not my personal favorite with so much out of my wheelhouse.
I moved back and forth between FUEL UP and FILL UP, but I thought it couldn’t be FILL because the F in the clue stands for full, which seems like a form of the word fill. Maybe not.
I did love that clue and many others (POP QUIZ, DEALERS, ENACT, TAURINE and MCING - the last two with some nice misdirection).
As for PIECAKEN, hated the word, willing to give the dessert a try. My sister-in-law makes great pies for Thanksgiving- gotta see if she’s up for this!
I rather enjoyed this one, but made a big mistake in the SW. Had "footman" for "gateman." (Too much Downton Abbey I suppose. And the answer to a rather cryptic clue made me laugh ("fuel up"). I was first searching for some musical answer. As for the parallel cartage/echorche, can we call that an unresolved Natick?
WTF dude it's a crossword puzzle. Surely there is something in this world more deserving of your ire!
Spot on, OFL.
This was a very, very fine Saturday puzzle, difficult but not impossible. Oh yes, and fun! ECORCHE was impossible for me but maneuvering the crosses got me there with no idea if it was correct until the happy sound ending. I didn’t know BREVE as clued, but I could make a guess on the familiarity of the word. MAILCHIMP is news to me, but not nearly as pleasurable as PIECAKEN sounds. I’m trying to imagine the combination that sounds best, perhaps apple pie with a spice cake or a single crust raspberry pie with a chocolate mouse cake. I have no idea what it would look like unless gravity sadly took hold and it became a leaning tower of Pisa.
Lol I also wanted a peach clue for DOIDARE
God dag på dig !
Pippi's hairstyle is pigtail braids.
As usual, Rex doesn’t know what he’s talking about when he says that “Wots dat deer” is horrendous. It’s from “Dat Dere,” a great song by Bobby Timmons and Oscar Brown Jr. It doesn’t take much for his PC antenna to go into overdrive and he probably thinks the clue is racist. What a jerk.
Medium here, fun to figure out. First in: MASALAS x EMOTICON and a quick slide down that diagonal to PRICES x TAXING. Then I made things hard for myself by misreading the clue number for the award duds and writing in Gown - which also meant that I erased the correct ST KITTS and CARTAGE. I soon abandoned the scene of that wreckage for the NW, where the A of APOSTLES got me UCLA and the rest of that quadrant and opened the way to enter the SW with ENERGY. Imagine my surprise when I encountered "more" awards wear with TUX. Anyway, that allowed me to get rid of the misplaced Gown and finish. Last in: ECORCHE x UV LIGHT.
New to me was PIECAKEN, which I feel should be brought to the attention of the Society for the Prevention of Pie Abuse. Slices of Thanksgiving pie deserve to be arrayed individually on one's plate for proper appreciation, not smooshed inside of an inferior confection.
ORINOCO: A nod here to Mrs. Olson, my seventh grade teacher, responsible for my being able to write in countless geographic features in countless grids.
Well, this certainly got me looking forward to Thanksgiving. We’ll likely do pretty much the same traditional meal we always do. Start with crabtrouten appetizers, then a little lettpepperen salad. Next we serve up the beanyamen side dish before carving up the turducken and finishing with big gooey gobs of PIECAKEN, oozing with ouzo.
I think Rex put the CARTAGE before the horseage, since the term existed in Carthage back in the Stoneage.
The ITCLUB sounds like a place for computer nerds, possibly founded by Jeff Chen. Not sure why T. Monk would record there.
ETHICS would have been fun to clue as “Law school subject that is frequently forgotten”.
Overall, I had the same trouble as most in the SE, but liked the puzzle. It actually seemed easier than a normal Sam Ezersky.
Pippi had plaits (or braids) - not pigtails. Grrr!!!
Wot’s dat over Cere? Is this such a good idea?
Do I Care.
you can arrange those clues and answers how you want for a conversation.
Did I finish? Do I CARE?
Blech
Emily Litella: "What's all this I hear about Male Chimps in the NYT crossword puzzle. That puzzle is so male dominated and biased. How about some diversity? There are Female Chimps, you know and furthermore...
Jane Curtin: "Emily, Emily, it's M A I L Chimp.
Emily: Never mind.
Stuff that in your piecaken and swallow
Yes indeed to 🦖’s crit, but IMHO it deserved a true trashing thrashing.
PIECAKEN was the worst….and I be mad because turd-ucken up to now was the only ugly word I know for such hybrids.
🧩👎🏽🧩
I think the closest comment to convey my feeling about the puzzle was @Frantic. I KNEW/KNOW this is a well-constructed puzzle but at some point I just wanted it to be over. I think I am just not in the Ezerksky Zone plus like @Kitshef his phrases don’t ring true, at least to how I think. Yes, this IS a Saturday so I am not beefing about the difficulty, I just find it amazing that, among other things, @Z found this mostly easy. I’m in the camp that has never heard of PIECAKEN which violates my version of the “breakfast test”..YUCK! What is it about our current culture that thinks it is good to stuff rich food into each other?
Anyway, I know Sam is a master constructor and he pleases many. I will just stand back and admire his ability.
@Rex correctly called the DERE clue/answer "truly horrendous". It is. Now we have a bunch of snowflakes trying to make it into a racist thing.
Learned lotsa new stuff, from this SatPuz. Sooo … a fighty feisty solvequest, at our abode.
News to m&e: CARTAGE. ECORCHE. NEUF. PIECAKEN. ITCLUB. MAILCHIMP.
fave stuff: TVANTENNA. POPQUIZ. ISTINK.
PIE+CAKE+somethin that ends with -N or -EN? Sounds like maybe the -N part is either PECAN or PUMPKIN (pie)? BTW: C/ART/AGE is a nice worducken. @RP: chickEN is doubtful.
M&A recently was served a SALMONBONEIN, at a local eatery, tho. But, I egest ...
From the QUE queue: PORQUE Pig would make a great Looney Tunes title. [yo, PETUNIA] Ergo, staff weeject pick (of a mere 10 candidate choices) = QUE.
DOIDARE/DERE. har
Thanx for the thorough ECORCHE-in', Mr. Ezersky dude.
Masked & Anonym007Us
**gruntz**
Far from being a "classist trope" or some kind of racist dog-whistle, Oscar Brown Jr.'s "Dat Dere" is a loving tribute from a Black man to his son. That son, by the way, grew up to be a bass player in his father's band, and Oscar would sing that song for him, with deep affection, in almost every performance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEHbARoxrnU
@Zwhatever - other words ending in -AGE that can have a "fee" meaning to them: Dockage, mileage, corkage, tonnage, anchorage. Perhaps you can quibble with some -- I feel like there should be more.
Enjoyable puzzle. "FUEL UP" was my favorite clue-answer pair, no quibbles there with the wording. I had "minim" for BREVE there for a bit, not being able to remember the British system of names of note lengths very well beyond quavers and crotchets. Turns out a minim is half of a whole note; a semibreve is a whole note; and a breve is two whole notes. My favorite, though, is the hemidemisemiquaver (64th note.) You can subdivide farther, you don't usually have use for much past the 64th note in music. Maybe 128ths, but I've never seen 256ths (demisemihemidemisemiquavers.) Which leads me to thinking of silly sentences like the conductor asking the violinist: "Would you please play the propreantepunultimate hemidemisemiquaver of the bar a bit more pizzicato?"
I enjoyed getting MASALAs, and crosses to pop in OIL GLUT, POP QUIZ, and APOSTLE.
Couldn't believe my eyes when I read the DERE clue.
Finally I had to look up the Antilles Islands for options. That gave me the K for GROK, And the other SE downs filled in with crosses.
I had wanted UV waves, and 48A to be a road.
For a moment I thought we might have a fossil fuel theme with oil wells, gas prices, fill ups…
I had FILL UP for a long time.
Pippi has two braids, they point in opposite directions.
Never heard of PIECAKEN- eww. Or the ITCLUB
But that's okay, it's Saturday.
My dnf came in the NW from being sure I was passing on a nOtE not LORE.
I didn’t know if PORKtIp was a thing, Or maybe the Disney Channel is known for broadcasting
Pro Golf FInals. Not a tv watcher here…
Finally, got “SOBEIT” when I was hoping to “love it.”
👍
ECORCHE means flayed. Now if you really want to feel the heebie jeebies, there's this German in Berlin nicknamed Dr. Death and he started this museum filled with corpses displaying the interior of the body sans flesh. It's called Plastination. Some find it fascinating, I find it terrifying. EGADS, look what's inside my body.... DO I DARE? DERE on said Michelangelo. If you studied some art, you'd learned what piqued his curiosity of the human body.
Speaking of art....Ah PETUNIA. It's my favorite little flower. I do water colors of these beautiful little gifts from God.
But did you like the puzzle? Yes...I did. I didn't know PIECAKEN (and I hope to never meet him)....and I've never heard of that MAIL CHIMP dude. Other than that, I found this an enjoyable tight little romp.
Loved me some I STINK and IN A WINK. Best lawyers I ever hired.
That Fine Arts degree finally paid off! Take that, ECORCHE! Almost a gimme. Took more offense at DERE and NMEX which, while inferable, were still really, really ugly. Please tell me we’re not accepting “N” as an abbreviation for “new” anywhere outside of NYC, right? Please?? What’s next? NENG?
I need to FUEL UP — maybe on a turducken/piecaken with bacon?— before I attempt to GROK a Sam E grid. Today’s struggle was typical hard lifting and wonderful cluing that I appreciate only retrospectively….looking at you E to F. Good clean fun like a Disney cinema. Did finish with tag team help from Mrs Newboy though by then I felt that Sam had flayed me like that ECORCHE guy and poured SALT on the wounds! NICE ONE Mr. Ezersky🥵
Well, well, well. Sam Ezersky. The wordnik Wunderkind. I just got through his SB today, and not to seem GROUCHY, but I think it's not unfair to say that this SB and this xword are, here and there, a bit showoff-y. That's not saying they're bad (putting aside today's NMEX which I find execrable). But when, for example, I see ECORCHE or "callaloo", or PIECAKEN (not a piece of CAKEN!), I know it's a Sam Ezersky production and I might just cry out at some point, "That's a word?!" and subsequently spend some time with my face in the dictionary. (As I say: not necessarily a bad thing.)
Just missed being a pangram (no J).
Objectively, the top half probably was easier, but I got my own start in the bottom half, mainly the SW. There is some clever misdirection (e.g. for TUX, whereas I'd been thinking more along the lines of Razzies): NICE ONE, Sam. Also for FUEL UP, although I agree with Rex that's nowhere near as much in the language as FilL UP. TIL that PIGTAIL is in fact acceptable, because pigtails can be braided (I guess my usual picture is of a young Marcia Brady who was not subjected to braids). BREVE I've seen but I didn't know what it was until today. One has to know a little about Greek roots (which rest assured our boy Sam does) to get SALT off the bat. A little cross-disciplinary POP QUIZ (math and French) to get NEUF.
(Which reminds me that the other night, on Jeopardy with Mayim Bialik as host, the show's team botched on RSVP where they stuck an s before the p in "répondez". That never would have passed unnoticed with Trebek at the helm, nosireebob.)
What else we got? Learned about APOSTLE. Was slightly chastened by taking a while to get MASALA, which I normally associate with Chicken Tikka MASALA (even though we keep a tin of Garam MASALA, a spice blend, in our kitchen). TIL EMIRATI, which looks a little funny to my eye, although I guess I don't know what else you'd call citizens of the UAE. I'll finish with DERE: DO I DARE say that I think @Sgreennyc is projecting much? Speculating what Rex must be thinking and then calling him a jerk because of it? Haters gonna hate.
td 0. I may be in touch with @bocamp later.
Stop bitching, Rex. It's Saturday!
@jazzmanchgo 12:22, thank you for providing the context for "over DERE."
@Suzy - I strongly suspect that piecracken is illegal. 😂🤣😂
@jae 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 - I was starting to feel lonely in thinking this was easy.
@thefenn - I love J.D. Martinez, and not just because he shares a name with our own @JD. But everyone else on the roster I know are not players I’d want on my team. And let’s not forget that the Sox got off easy in the sign-stealing scandal. There’s actually good reason to think that the Sox manager was a key player in both scandals, so that the Sox are actually worse cheaters. They benefited from Manfred (arguably the worst commissioner ever) wanting to put the entire mess behind MLB. So, yes, I very much wanted the Astros to beat the Red Sox while J.D. hit a half dozen dingers. Now, if you want to cheer on a Boston team without a hint of scandal around them, Boston’s Brute Squad is in the semifinals against Denver’s Molly Brown on ESPN3 tonight.
@jazzmanchgo - just to be clear, Rex only said DERE is a horrendous answer. It was others claiming otherwise. If Rex thought DERE was a classist or racist we all know he would have.
btw - thanks for the link.
My favorite posts this morning.
Lewis (6:31)
Beezer (12:20)
Peter P (12:23)
@egs 11:54......crabtrouten, lettpepperen, beanyamen made me cracken up.
@Masked 12:22.... PORQUE Pig. The oink du jour.
34d: Dat ___, jazz tune lyricized by Oscar Brown Jr
This was good, no real problem spots. I also had FILL UP for awhile but I wanted BREVE and LULL and then it occurred to me that the jazz venue would end with CLUB and I sort of remembered there had been an "It" Club somewhere. (The "It" Club can't have been a very big deal because the only references to it online are for the Monk album.)
Agree with @Unknown 9:32 that LEAD ACT is ridiculous: if anything it sounds like it would mean the opening act, which is *not* the headliner.
I liked CARTAGE (had heard it before) and ÉCORCHÉ (had not), which were gettable from crosses. All in all, an enjoyable Saturday. I generally like Sam Ezersky but then I don't do the SB.
Thank you @jazzmanchgo for the reminder and the link to Oscar Brown, Jr. and the song "Dat Dere". He was truly one of the greats and the song is perhaps the best father's ode ever. My "Sin & Soul" vinyl album is one of the few that I have hung on to (for 60 years!).
@TTrimble (12:51 PM) 👍 for 0 td
Did the best I could in an hour. After looking at the answers, I take back my comment about it being the 'toughest ever' (same as today's xword). Just seemed like it, when fishing for words that wouldn't come out of hiding. The difference is: I don't have a time limit on the xword, so that got sorted out. As for the SB, there was nothing new, so given another 11 hours on it, the outcome may have been different. LOL
___
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
My fiancée and I found this one easy (for a Saturday). I did not share Rex’s quibble with FUELUP. I come from a musical background, too, yet looked at the clue and thought “Wait, the music is a misdirection.” Guessed it outright as FUELUP without crosses, so the fill/fuel distinction didn’t catch me.
I listen to plenty of podcasts, though have never listened to Serial, so MAILCHIMP has no podcast association for me. Rather I used to use MAILCHIMP to run my band’s newsletter (back when we were still active). It’s a really common email list application; I’m surprised Rex has never encountered it outside of Serial sponsorship.
Weirdly my musical knowledge got in the way of getting BREVE because for whatever reason I was thinking “two whole steps” rather than two whole notes. And two whole steps make a major third. I had a SMH moment when I realized “note” indicates duration, not pitch. It’s been decades since I’ve been in a formal music setting (music theory major for one semester in the 90s!), and professional musicians in the pop/rock/indie world don’t always stick to those distinctions so much once we’ve left school. (Not that I’m professional anymore, just that I still play music with people who are.)
I digress! To wrap up: I didn’t love love love this puzzle, didn’t hate it. Found it to be Just Fine. No complaints. Looking forward to tomorrow’s.
Here's another version of "Dat Dere" – I usually can't stand this singer's baby-girl affect, but it sort of works here.
...and one more version that I do like.
I guess I was the only to finish with PRIZES/ZARTAGE :D
Can’t agree with Rex about CARTAGE. It’s a known name to me, why, I have no idea. Seen it somewhere.
BREVE was also not a problem. I got it from Alle Breve, a rather well known musical notation.
The rest was not so good - too many obscure obscurities.
Dare I mention that Sam is a Times crossword editor? Just saying.
Oh my goodness, two new facts (about the Orinoco and the Petunia) and two new words (ecorche and piecaken). Which means 2. it took me forever, and 2.it was very satisfying when I finished. Loved the E to F clue (I mean , eventually. )
NICE ONE. Just the right amount of challenge. After my slow start, I’m surprised I was able to solve it without any errors or cheats.
But are some people really afraid of SALT?
Halophobiac: Hello, 911? There is an intruder in my house!. It’s in my kitchen! I don’t know how it got there or what it’’s going to do! I’ve never been so scared in my life!
Operator: Sir, please try to remain calm so I can assess the situation. When you say, “it,” what do you mean? Is it an animal of some kind?”
Halophobiac: No, it is not an animal. For God’s sake, why do you have to ask so many questions? Can’t you see that I need help? Please send someone immediately! It’s on my kitchen counter! I’m looking at it right now!!
Operator: Please be patient, sir. I just need a little more information. Can you describe this intrude for me?
Halophobiac: Well, it’s…it’s white and…and granular and…oh, my God! No! There’s a whole bunch of them!
Operator: Do you see the word “Morton’s” anywhere?
Halophobiac: I don’t know. I can’t look any more! It’s too scary!
Operator: Get to a safe place and try to stay calm. Help is on the way.
Whew! Had to work vertically and horizontally a lot more than usual, what with so many unfamiliar or strained clues. First intro to ECHERCHE or whatever it was. Also to PIECAKEN (is that the German plural of PIECAK?) No problem with DAT DERE (But daddy is what's dat green elephant over dere or something). STRIPES before PIGTAIL, ANTENN... before TVANTEN..., CURRIES before MASALAS. Last fill was the N of PIECAKEN, and no one could be as surprised as I to learn that I had solved the puzzle with that.
@jberg, yes for curries before MASALAS. Solved with my granddaughter - what a team! We agreed we were thankful we've never encountered a PIECAKEN.
@bocamp, thanks for your kind words. I tip my cap to the masters.
2pg, can't find the third; -7.
@Z 1:03 smiles, JD Martinez is one of my least favorite, though unfairly and largely because of the whole White House visit mess - he is a fabulous hitter. And of course there's no way to support Cora, and Boston, without getting the scandal stain, but this year's Sox were very likeable and did a good deal better than anyone thought they would, much to Cora's credit,, I think, so worth cheering for, at least in my house. Would like to see Baker get a ring. Thanks for the Ultimate link, just might watch that.
https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/17637/bp-unfiltered-mvps-who-werent-all-stars/
SE my biggest problem. Kept trying to fit BLINK in instead of WINK; finally saw the UVLIGHT, which I had early, as well as DEALER. With my geology training I knew “halite” was rock SALT, so that went in. Opened up the south when I finally amended my “car tagS” to CARTAGE. BREVE was hard; I can recall the hemi-demi-semi-quaver, but never heard of two whole notes. I also had to get rid of “FRETup” for “FUEL UP”. I agree the term is much more common as fill-up, but when I finally sussed it I thought the clue was cute. The opposite goes for PET FEES, which is one of the worst clues/answers in crossword history. “Charges” could be misdirected as “animals in one’s charge”, but it turned out there was no misdirect, or, in my case, a double misdirect!
First of all, I got a mega-chuckle from OFL thinking that CARTAGE might have the soft G and accent on the second syllable with fake-French pronunciation. Like the big box store with the red bullseye logo is similarly fake-French pronounced with an accent ague on the second syllable. Ummmmmm, no. The word comes from the fees that (among other things) peddlers had to pay as “carters” of goods and larger concerns paid CARTAGE fees. I suppose even in the Middle Ages, the heavier the load, the more damage to the roads and standard taxes would have been insufficient to undertake repairs in any “city.”
@Lewis said it all for me. Except I was not given the “wavelength visa” I enjoyed yesterday. Today was an odd mix of stutter steps. I just got some momentum and unlike @Lewis, I did experience the dreaded portcullis-twice coming bang-down locked tight until I took a break and came back a couple times.
Specifically, the SW gave me fits. Part of the problem was a quibble with the clue “controvert” which (to me-and yes, here comes my lawyerness) goes waaaaay beyond DENY, but I gladly just put that in the “my problem” box. Next, IN A WINK? Really? I know I will be sounding just like @Rex here, but does anyone really say IN A WINK? Ever? Blink, possibly but not very likely. Blink of an eye, absolutely. And then there was the Manir’s GATE MAN. Awkward, to me. GATE keeper certainly. I also admit that it took me way too long to GROK that I’m wearing a TUX to the awards ceremony. Again, all on me.
Overall, very Sam Ezersky and I forgive every little complaint or nit or blemish, wart or zit because of the marquee Go from E to F. Such class! My foggy mind got tangled up EMIRATI only because when I started to type I went into Dan Brown land and thought “not enough squares for Illuminati!” Good grief!”
Disliked the possible abbreviations for either Albuquerque or New Mexico within the space provided was awkward. Neither works well, but in the end, i thought N MEX was only slightly leas awful than ALBQ, which after all only has one extra letter added to the airport designation, ABQ. Oh well, I overthink.
Excellent Saturday, possibly a bit easy, but the tough parts were tough so well balanced.
Never, NEVER heard of a PIECAKEN, which sounds both disgusting and ridiculous. And Pippi Longstocking has lots of things (freckles, striped socks, braids) but not PIGTAILs.
Piecaken is the piecraken. Unleash it.
i had so many issues with today's puzzle I will just say 'IT SUCKED'!! Obscure answers, obscure clues to common answers, things you don't know, e.g. - I know Thelonious Monk, but I couldn't know every venue he ever played!! Grrrrrr. Saturdays are for challenging, not irrelevant.
Good review, Sam
@Joe DiPinto - We've been here before - Any version other than Oscar Brown Jr singing it is sacrilege, especially Mel Friggin Torme, who halfway, kinda intimates that he wrote it. To whomever refuted the possibility that DAT DERE couldn't be racially stereotyping because of the lyrics, the lyrics came well after the composition was named. Bobby Timmons might have something about his community in mind when he named the tune, but it wasn't about OBJ taking his kid to the zoo.
@PS JDiP - Just say that Tony Bennet had a version - I might break my rule and listen to that.
Hilarious, @Joseph Michael (5:11)!
Late to the party on this comment, but I suspect the PIGTAIL confusion comes from how the word is used regionally. To me, pigtails are plaited/braided by definition, on each side. Unbraided are just called "bunches." So Pippi's are definitely pigtails to me, as I think of hers as braided, but Googling images shows me Pippis with both pigtails and just bunches, so a Pippi can be found to exemplify both styles.
Note Wikipedia's rundown on pigtails: "the usage of the term pigtail (or twin tail or twintail) shows considerable variation. The term may refer to a single braid, but is more frequently used in the plural ("pigtails") to refer to twin braids on opposite sides of the head. For some people, the term "pigtails" applies whether or not the hair is braided, but there is not widespread agreement on this (in places where this usage is common, unbraided pairs are called doggie ears or bunches and a single bunch, regardless of position on the head, is called a ponytail.)"
Colloquial terms can have a lot of variation regionally and generationally. I wish people would research a little before assuming a clue-answer pair is incorrect because their understanding of the word differs from the common understanding of the word.
Nothing more to say except I got good and grokked. It is hard to believe that I reached very late middle age without coming across it. A very odd and unpleasant word that I will not add to vocabulary. Yuck!
"PIECAKEN?" Really, Sam? Was there really no other way to finish the grid?
What the heck is Piecaken???? Are you kidding me?????
Huge jazz fan here, and “The It Club” was new to me. Never heard of the Monk album either. As a New Yorker, the only famous venue I associate with LA is the Lighthouse, on Hermosa Beach.
This puzzle made me feel like I came from some other dimension of Earth. Brutal. PIECAKEN almost made me throw my phone.
My main cluing objection is that there should be a “¿” at the start of the clue for 4 down.
I'll put this here a day later, just in case aliens read this thread centuries hence:
The Bobby Timmons album that "Dat Dere" came from was called "This Here", which was the name of the first track. So the album had two songs called "This Here" and "Dat Dere"...I don't know why he put a slangy spelling on one but not the other. "This Here" was later recorded by Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, with the title "Dis Hyunh" – Jon Hendricks added lyrics to the head and they sort of sang it like the spelling indicates.
"Dere" as a slang pronunciation (and as the answer in the puzzle) relates most commonly to those who speak with a "dese, dem, dose" pronunciation (stereotypically thought of as a Brooklyn accent). The puzzle clue/answer has nothing to do with any ethnicity or with anything to make a big stink over. @Rex didn't like it as an answer, that's all. I would agree, but a clue referencing the song (as I put in my post) would make it an acceptable answer, imo. But probably no one at the Times was aware of the song.
Ha!
This is why I don't like seeing Ezersky's byline. He thinks nothing of slapping consonants together: PGFILMS, MCING (that one is REALLY ugly), NMEX...by the time we get to the more normal RSVP, it just screams "consonant jam!" DERE is the problem. Double bogey. Take that, Muscles!*
*AKA Bryson DeChambeau, who thinks WAY too much of himself, even while losing 4&3 to Koepka
We go from a really NICEONE yesterday by Robyn Wintraub and now this. Sam Ezerski puts out the online edition of the NYT Spelling Bee puzzle. Which is probably why Will Shortz gave this mediocre entry the green light. If you’re going to clue something “Rabbit ears” you better make sure the answer is plural i.e. TVANTENNAE or TVANTENNAs. Otherwise, clue it as “Set of rabbit ears”. Also, PETFEES is only there because Sam could not find a way to make it vETFEES. It could have been salvaged with better cluing like: Line entry in a household budget. But alas no. The editor lets it slip by as is. NMEX / DERE should have automatically disqualified this one. But Will Shortz is asleep at the switch - agaiin. I could go on but what’s the DIF?
PS - Note to Joe Dipinto above. The aliens have arrived ahead of schedule. All your base are belong to us.
MC RIB
DOIDARE ask PETUNIA,
or DENY my ETHICS today:
"That PIGTAIL, BEIT new on ya?
If SO, IHOPE you know PORK QUE."
--- POP ECORCHE
"emirati" and "mailchimp" = Rejected.
Rabbit ears is the name of the TV antenna that sat on top of the TV. It is singular not plural. You are wrong.
Stupidity is as stupidity writes.
MASSIVE triumph points here. Did not think I'd get more than 5 or 10 answers. Then I used Will's tip of "fill in your guesses," and even wrong guesses led to right answers eventually. Whooo-raaaay!
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
No write-overs but the SE took a while. Don't know about comments but PPP must be very low.
PIGS in the corners to go with PIGTAIL, PORKRIB and PETUNIA. Hahaha.
OK for today.
It is an interesting comment that if the solver can GROK an answer, you should credit the solver (who feels smug); meanwhile if the solver cannot get an answer, it must be a fault of the constructor.
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