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Attractive fashionable man in modern parlance / WED 11-10-21 / Eponym of a famed NYC deli / Title woman in song by Dexys Midnight Runners
Wednesday, November 10, 2021
Constructor: Max Chen Lauring and Benjamin Chen Lauring
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Theme answers:
- LOW-FAT MILK (17A: 56-Across, to a dairy farmer)
- DYING BATTERY (22A: 56-Across, to a smartphone user)
- UNFAVORABLE ODDS (34A: 56-Across, to a gambler)
- THE ULTRARICH (46A: 56-Across, to Occupy)
Melanie Robbins (née Schneeberger on October 6, 1968) is an American lawyer, television host, author, and motivational speaker. Robbins is known for covering the George Zimmerman trial for CNN; her TEDx talk, How to Stop Screwing Yourself Over; and her books, The 5 Second Rule and The High 5 Habit. She also has multiple podcast series hosted on Audible. [...] Her syndicated daytime talk show with Sony Pictures Television, The Mel Robbins Show, premiered on September 16, 2019. On January 29, 2020, Sony announced that the show would be canceled following its first season due to low ratings. (wikipedia)
• • •
I had no idea what the theme was as I was moving through the top half, and when not knowing became tedious, I decided to do something I normally don't do, which is just cut to the chase and jump down to the revealer and work back from there. Thus I ended up with this weird-looking split solve at first:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
The revealer was easy to turn up, and once you've got it, the themers become simple. As for the fill, it's noticeably rough, with entire sections I had to wince my way through (most notably the THUROONANUFF section and the IDYLENRYTTYL section). I don't understand how a grid can flash a new word like ZADDY but not have the presence of mind to clean up the olden gunk that dominates so much of the rest of the grid. RAF AMAS ALOE ORA WONAT EBSEN AMESS and on and on; a few of these things are always acceptable, a raft of them tends to rankle. One ZADDY doesn't fix things.
No idea there was any motivationally-speaking Robbins besides TONY, so weirdly MEL was probably the hardest thing in the grid for me. KANYE's name is just YE now, legally, and the clue probably should've reflected that, despite the fact that he was indeed KANYE when he made "Yeezus," but even then, you probably should've put "familiarly" in this clue, as technically he was not a one-named rapper. He recorded as KANYE West. I would never have put AGAVE and didgeridoos together, so that clue was interesting. I put those things on entirely different continents, but either there are Australian instrument enthusiasts in Central America or there's AGAVE in Australia ... or maybe both? No, looks like AGAVE belongs solely to the Americas, so I don't know who figured the didgeridoo thing out. I know AGAVE solely as the plant distilled to make tequila (and mezcal). I hope you knew the NYC deli (10A: Eponym of a famed N.Y.C. deli => KATZ) because I can easily imagine you not knowing ZADDY, and I can also easily imagine you (like me) forgetting which "carat" has the "c" and which the "k" (10D: Gold standards = KARATS). Here's everything you ever wanted to know about ZADDY (13D: Attractive, fashionable man, in modern parlance). See you tomorrow.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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131 comments:
I liked the puzzle a lot more than @Rex did (I know, alert the media), but if I gauged difficulty on solving time this one would go down as ultra-challenging. I made one little error: SHOPliftER instead of SHOPKEEPER at 14A. That made KANYE ungettable (I don't know "Yeezus"), along with DETAIN, REMAND and APING.
Well, two little errors: as I tentatively entered roti for the tandoori side at 20A I did think "This could also be NAAN."
Other than that, a normal fun Wednesday.
ZADDY? Good thing no one ever referred to me as ZADDY because I am sure my feelings would have been hurt. Of course, now that I know what it means, I will confess that the chances that someone would actually refer to me in that manner is less than 56A. Waaaaay less.
bizarre puzzle
Whenever a theme appears that has never been done before – or anything like it – it’s worth, a huge bravo to me, considering how many crosswords there have been. Way to go, Max and Benjamin! (I want to call this puzzle a Benjamax production.)
I’m also amazed when a common word such as DISPENSARY shows up in a NYT puzzle as a debut answer, considering how many puzzles there have been. Remarkable!
ZADDY is quite new to the language – I see that it was added to Dictionary.com just last year. It’s certainly new for me and I like it a lot. I’m not sure that I’ll throw it into conversation any time soon, but I’ll know what it means when I hear it, and I hope it sticks – I love the sound of it.
Two F-words I like – FRAPPE and FESTERS – and the lovely TTYL ending. I love the energy of this puzzle, Benjamin and Max, and don’t be strangers, please. Thank you!
Thanks for the Shirley
LAMEASSPUZZLE agreed
Rex described much of my solve experience in describing his--the unfamiliar MEL instead of Tony Robbins, the totally new to me ZADDY combined with my repeated urge to start KARATS with a C (which made KATZ the final word entered), and the jumping down to figure out the theme in order to ease the solve. For me, those things produced a Wednesday puzzle that was Friday/Saturday hard, not Wednesday easy/medium.
As for your HDW (hidden diagonal word) I chose one that can be clued at a Wednesday level or (for me) a Saturday level. Here's the Saturday level clue for this 4 letter diagonal:
Protective Medieval skullcap (Answer to follow)
I would have UNFAVORABLE ODDS of coming up with the answer to that clue. My problem with 34A (56A, to a gambler) is that ONE PERCENT seems to be a good bit worse that UNFAVORABLE ODDS. Those are almost "So you're telling me there's a chance" ODDS. Or for an aggressive gambler with a strong hunch, I suppose they could be attractive ODDS.
Here's a more accessible clue for today's HDW:
Fancy do
Loved Joaquin's 6:35 response to ZADDY. Reminded me of the time a decade ago when one of my son's friends told me my hat was "dope" and my wife had to assure me later that I had not been insulted. :-)
Here's your diagonal word answer:
COIF (beginning at 58A space, moving NW)
Enjoyable. Had heard ZADDY before somewhere (obviously not directed at me), but needed time to remember the first letter. Once I realized cAT_ was not going to be the deli name, it was easy to sort out. Only big write-over was enuF for NUFF. That obscured a lot for me but once fixed opened up the middle
Good overall. Yes, the one percent was not perfect as Rex noted, but it did not detract from the enjoyment of the solve.
Theme was a little obtuse - but cute enough. Liked the oddball KATZ x ZADDY cross and the Dexy’s - Jed Clampett lean.
Betting odds can be represented in Rex’s fractional example, decimal or money line formats. They are all the same thing - the return on given units bet. Most serious gamblers convert these formats to implied probabilities or percentages so they can compare them and figure the economy of scale of all their bets. It’s more of a late week entry but I have no issue with it.
Enjoyable Wednesday solve.
ONEPERCENT is not odds but does describe a situation of unfavorable odds, and thus is a valid clue. Of course, if you put up a dollar and have a 1% chance of winning a million dollars, I guess those might be considered favorable odds.
Rough for a Wednesday here. Foreign languages, unknown peeps, unknown music. Unknown plant usages. It did not say traditional material for a didgeridoo. You can use PVC pipe for that matter.
You can use 10 inch PVC pipe to make a squirrel-proof bird feeder too. Too wide for them to climb. Any bird flu reports? Is feeding still a no-no?
Am 50% with @Lewis on F Words today. "Friendly's" restaurants were teen hangouts in my youth. The FRAPPES there were called Fribbles and a favorite of mine. Especially partial to coffee flavored Fribbles.
BTW, 'fribble' also means a frivolous person, x-word constructors.
As for the puzzle, it is fun to work with a different kind of theme. Makes up for any crosswordese. ZADDY was new to me. Luckily, most of the rest was easier and Wednesday level. Hope your day is above average level with just one percent chores/boring tasks.
Thanksgiving Eve in 2 weeks.
Thx Max & Benjamin, for an excellent, challenging Wednes. puz! :)
Tough (and tougher due to 10A / 10D / 13D).
The usual issue with c/kARAT. Don't know the 'N.Y.C. deli eponym', nor the 'fashionable man parlance'. Inclination is to go with KATY, but will sleep on it. Leaning towards 'K' for gold; a mnemonic flicker of, 'K' for Knox = KARAT, but yADDY just doesn't resonate. Off to bed; we'll see what the morning brings to the NE corner of –AT–. 🤞
[Morning update: ok, ran the alpha before nodding off; liked the 'Z'; bingo! KATZ got the job done.] :)
A crunchy creation, resulting in numerous holdups.
Nevertheless, a very enjoyable and worthwhile adventure. :)
Seems like the NYT Mon. - Wednes. are getting more and more crunchy. OK by me.
@Eniale (4:56 PM yd)
Well done! I found yd's list to be quite difficult. I would have needed a lucky guess to get the last one.
___
yd pg -1 (missed this one)
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Read a couple of the "56 -Across" clues and, like OFL, decided to get it over with and go fill in said "56-Across", after which the LOW part of 17A became obvious, as did the other references. This one would have been better with a title like "A Little Bit" or something that didn't give the game away entirely.
As it was I liked it fine. Was happy to remember KATZ, as ZADDY was a WOE, although after filling it in it looked vaguely familiar.
Only other questionable fill for me was IMAC, which was obvious, crossing HOMIE, which was not. I've known HOWIES, but not HOMIES, unless it's used as a nickname for folks from your own neighborhood, which didn't seem to go with the clue.
Good stuff, MCL and BCL. Had a Mildly Challenging Lexicon and made the Better Clues List, so thanks for the fun.
I never heard of ZADDY and could not remember the currency for South Africa so I had ZAnDY. It was close to dandy so I thought that might be right. Turns out, according to Urban Dictionary, zandy means something completely different. When I didn't get the happy music I figured out. Overall, it was pretty easy.
You know, that EBSEN was a ZADDY back in the day. . .
I can't say that once I got the reveal the themers were simple. UNFAVORABLEODDS and THEULTRARICH still took some time to gel, but I thought it was a fun theme and the reveal did help. I didn't mind the 'THE' problem, but odds as a percent did get an arched eyebrow (and I think a 1% probability converts to 100-to-1, not 99-to-1).
Also could've sworn we just saw ZADDY but maybe that was in The New Yorker. Enjoyed the cluing for plenty of the fill, including QUACKS. No ringing chimes for me until I sat there staring at the cATZ/cARATS cross and an "oh, K" reaction.
You know...I probably could have gone for what's left of my life without knowing this ZADDY deal and died happy. Now, I'll never be sure.
And if that's what was supposed to "fix things" in this puzzle (as Rex says), we're gonna need a bigger boat.
Oh, and don't even think about dipping your toe in my lawn.
Thanks to @Z and @Nancy and others for saving me from having to come up with anything better than:
1. I shrugged a mehty shrug
2. Much of a much of a muchness
3. Nothing burger
4. No "there" there
Signed,
Cranky Sloth
🧠🧠.5
🎉.5
Well, I made the silly cARATS mistake (duh!) and never heard of ZADDY so that corner was a disaster for me. Especially since I wanted Sardi’s even though that’s not a deli. The rest of the puzzle was just fine, thank you, but I’m not happy to learn that ZADDY is a thing.
As a Wednesday puzzle it seemed about right, difficulty-wise. I also thought the theme was fine, Rex’s microscopic scrutiny notwithstanding. Unfortunately the grid just had too high a concentration of things I really don’t care for (the usual suspects - foreign crap like AGUA, RAND, and MALO, quasi and made-up words like AMAS, RAZR (and even ZADDY), rappers and horrible trivial stuff like ENRY and Dexys). I concede that is personal preference though - you win some, you lose some. Hoping for better tomorrow.
I have met a fair number of the commentariat in person and of those I’ve met the most ZADDY is @Lewis.
From a solving standpoint, having the same cross-reference for each theme answer is a major demerit. I just don’t like needing to either go solve the revealer or solving with incomplete clues so needing 56A for the themers predisposed me to dislike the puzzle. Post-solve I see that it’s not terrible, but I was grumbling the entire solve.
I also noticed that we have two across answers of the same length as themers bracketing themers in the NW and SE. This is a minor thing, but sub-optimal.
Yesterday “roti,” today NAAN. Tomorrow I predict “pita” to complete our four-letter-flat-bread triumvirate.
It occurred to me yesterday (as people kept going on and on how everyone should know everything written by yesterday’s dead light poet) that the puzzle skewed dead. I took a look and I think it may well have been the most dead puzzle we’ve ever had (not that I track this so I can’t say for certain). Curious, I toted up dead v alive PPP today and I am pleased to report that the puzzle skews less dead today. We have five dead people, six living people, and one Schrödinger PPP (OONA Chaplin is both a dead actress and a living actress, and the clue doesn’t tell us which). Perhaps the most telling example of dead PPP is cluing IOWA via Johnny Carson. Of all the ways to clue IOWA we went with a TV personality who has been off the air for 26 years. To recap, his replacement has been replaced, then returned, then replaced again since he’s gone off the air. Personally, I’d have gone with some sort of 21st century clue rather than someone whose tv career started in B&W.
The LOWFATMILK clue sort of implied that a dairy farmer would do something different to produce 1% milk, but I'm guessing the farmers just milk the cows and sell the milk. It's not like they have a separate herd of low fat cows or use a low fat milking machine. (Ok, I know Holsteins produce lower fat milk than say Jerseys or Guernseys, but most milk cows are Holsteins anyway.)
I had UNFA_O_ABLEODDS for a long time and just couldn't think of those two letters -- my mind was clogged up with 'unfathomable' and couldn't move beyond it. Finally I got QUIZ and realized that 35D must be VAULT, rather than some 5-letter word for ping pong. (I still don't get it -- is that bar they push themselves over called a 'table?')
As @Albie pointed out, one percent can be favorable odds if the pot is big enough.
My father sold his drug store when he was in his fifties, traveled around the world with my mother, and planned on more of the same, but she got sick so they stayed home more, and he started filling in at the pharmacy in the town hospital. Pretty soon he was full-time, and ended up with a second career. He never called it anything other than 'the hospital pharmacy,' but maybe that was just him.
Sensitized by our recent pangram discussion, I saw the Zs, X, and Q and decided to check. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be a J.
“To no end” in common parlance means “to no purpose” rather than “on and on and on.”
I’ve never read or heard anyone say “to no end” as meaning “it went on forever” or the like.
Crashed and burned. Don't ask.
I SAVED part of my morning by changing RIAL (my "go-to" 4-letter currency beginning wih an R) to RAND -- thus being able to finish the ridiculous ZADDY corner. This is what you call an attractive, fashionable man???!!! The mind boggles.
But it was the unknown techie stuff in the RAZR/QUIZ area that did me in. And SpuRN instead of SCORN for "disdain" kept me from seeing THE ULTRA RICH. My answer ended in -ARIpH. What was that?
I also ended up with UNFAir tABLE ODDS instead of UNFAVORABLE ODDS at 34A. And this gave me TREO instead of RAZR for the early flip phone. Wasn't there some sort of contraption called a TREO?
Don't ask. To have such an epic fail in a Wednesday is mortifying. Though I don't really consider it completely my fault.
QUACKS, though, was great and completely defeated me. If only I knew anything at all about Reddit, I would have had that Q from QUIZ. Sigh.
And I thought the theme was terrific. The fill -- not so much.
Please explain how 1% is unfavorable. At a casino, you can calculate the odds of every option at the craps table and 1% house advantage would be in most cases damn good for the bettor. The spreads at fanduel etc are much much worse than 1%. This was an awful clue in what was otherwise a decent puz.
I am as far from a zaddy as one can get but with my 6th g'child due this month, I am very much a zayde. Right, bubbeleh? Of course right.
I had lots of empty squares I could have guessed at but didn't bother with; not just the upper right corner. Since I solve on paper I don't get the 'happy pencil song' anyhow. I suppose it must be a good song, so many of you seem to care about it. My current microwave looked in the store like it had all the features I wanted, but when I got it home it turned out that it plays a happy hot food song every time the time runs out, which never fails to annoy. The things they don't tell you on the label.
The last time our agave bloomed, a guy asked if he could have the stalk to make into a didgeridoo. That saved me from having to saw it into pieces that the “resource recovery” people would pick up.
Hey All !
Epic NE corner fail! Dang. Not a NYC-hanger-arounder so KATZ eluded me, even though I know that name, but apparently not how to spell it. Had cATs, which got me cARATS (brutal) and seDDY for ZADDY, as AGUe for AGUA. Yeesh.
Rest of puz fairly easy. Unexplainable Tues for THUR holding me up in that section. No one to blame there but myself. Once I got QUIZ, went looking for the pangram, hoping to get another rant from Rex, but no J. C'mon guys, stick a J somewhere! Maybe replace the B in BET to a J, and rework that corner a tad.
WONAT is a DOOK. Don't know the Olympic event VAULT. Pole vault, sure. But no tables required on that. Can't wrap the ole brain around the clue for QUACKS. Someone explain like my brain is a two-year old.
So, KANYE is now just YE? YEesh. Does anyone care?
Four F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Language is often misleading or ambiguous. So, too, with today's theme.
Therefore my reaction today is not to criticize, but to take on a challenge.
This led me today to enjoyment and appreciation in the process of working
out answers.
Had SHOPliftER before SHOPKEEPER.
Learned MEL Robbins; wanted Tim (conflated with Tony).
Had WREN with the same clue in a recent puz.
ONE PERCENT worked for me. Didn't need 'the' to make sense of it.
Fun solve. :)
___
td g -3 (timed out)
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Is there any use whining about the NE corner? Because I could, Tonoend.
I wasn't going to say this until I read @Liveprof. Meet your hearing challenged Bubbe at Katz's Deli for lunch and introduce your boyfriend by saying he's a Zaddy. Report back to me. It's the only thought that could get me in the Zaddy camp. Otherwise I'm in the @Frantic camp.
If one of The Ultra Rich came down from his space flight and held a 100-contestant lottery selling $1,000 tickets for a $5,000,000 prize, how would you feel about a 1% chance of winning? Would you buy the ticket? Would the odds be favorable enough? What if your Zayde loaned you the money?
Also I remembered that there was a Razor phone but it wasn't working.
Bitterness aside, I actually loved this puzzle.
Hummmm.? Today’s NE corner reminded me how far New York is from Idaho. Plaid shirts and pickups are the world we live in, so I’m hoping that ZADDY entering KATZ’s deli has more resonance for @Nancy and other blog urbane denizens than we experienced west of the Rockies. Otherwise I’ll say Rex pretty well nailed it. Kinda like the IDLE/IDYL in the same grid on Wednesday, but with ONE PERCENT in place the puzzle was half done it seemed. Always nice to see bros having fun together, so thanks to the Laurings for their continuing efforts.
If you had a ONEPERCENTCHANCE of hitting a six-spot in keno paying 7752-1, you would be getting very favorable odds.
Yesterday I was wondering how I knew OGDEN Nash. I thought that it was because some of his lines are quoted so much. But then I remembered once having a book of some of his best verses, A Golden Trashery of Ogden Nashery.
I just looked up the lyrics of ZADDY, a rap by Ty Dolla Sign from 2016. Nothing there to indicate what the word has to with a sexy older guy. The rap must have been very popular for the word to have made it into dictionaries.
Nice puzzle. Intelligently clued, very clean, only eleven threes.
Who’s your Zaddy?
On the tough side for me but I shot myself in the foot several times by not reading the clues carefully. So it probably wasn’t that hard. Cute idea but @Rex makes some good points about some of the theme answers. Liked it more than he did.
ZADDY, ZADDY, give me your answer doo
I'm half crazy over the looks of you.
@Z...Hah. Yes! Which OONA? The dead one or the cutie pie live one? Cutie pie is still alive and so is her Mommie Dearest, Geraldine. I met Geraldine when she was living with Carlos Saura in Madrid. She was quite possibly the biggest DRAMA queen (and a bit nasty, I might add) in all of Spain.
OK....the puzzle. On to the puzzle:
I'll start by saying I did what every stupid, sane person would do. I jumped the line and went immediately to the reveal. So I got ONE PERCENT and still did a head bop. Oh, wait....LOW FAT MILK....Nice little happy feet dance but no fandango tango...Yet.
I crept through this....I crawled...I got mad that I just had to cheat with VAULT and AMAS. Why, I ask...does VAULT need a table? Where is Ping Pong when you need him?
Little by little I got my theme answers....This was different, says I and I rather liked it.
So I finished with a smile and then went looking for fun things.
I thought about flip phones for a while. Mexicana Airlines purchased one of the first flip phones for all of its Managers. Such a novelty. Ours was the StarTac.....I would take that little thing out of my purse and wiggle it around for everybody to see. Nobody had one then and let me tell you: ... you want to meet a ZADDY, just open that little puppy in a bar and they all come over and offer to buy you a drink. I hate them now....(sigh)....
I have nothing more to add other than I just heard on the news that all the sea otters at the Monterrey Aquarium have been vaccinated against COVID. Yay! Save the sea otters......
First DNF on a Wednesday for a long time. Not knowing the eponymous deli and incorrectly getting my gem size (CARAT) and metal count (KARAT) mixed up, plus having never heard of ZADDY, I just gave up and came here.
The rest of the puzzle was, well, fine. I got hung up for a bit with UBERRICH until I saw it actually filled in as UBERA. I’ve now decided that UBERA could be an interesting word…or pretend Latin…ubera umbra veritas!
Welp, I'm a guy who doesn't know Katz. Lesson learned. "I'll have what she's having," and such. There was plenty in this puzzle that was mystifying for me, (Dora, 'Enry, Ebsen), but Katz/Karats/Zaddy is where I got Naticked for the DNF. Oh well.
Meanwhile, in the realm of "somebody's wrong on the internet:"
@amyyanni A Fribble and a Frappe are not the same. This caused much confusion for a young first-generation New Englander such as myself. And, to be honest, the only way I learned was through my year two summers of employment at Friendly's. Anyhoo, regionally speaking:
Milkshake: Shaken milk and chocolate syrup, basically a highly agitated chocolate milk. I can't tell you how disappointed I was when I found out the hard way there's no ice cream in a milkshake.
Frappe: Includes ice cream, what everyone outside of New England calls a milkshake.
Fribble®: Essentially a frozen (New England) milkshake. Fribbles® are made with frozen milk, which is not ice cream, (for serious). Frozen milk only comes in frozen milk flavor, which to my mind is a fault in a semi-frozen dairy slurry, I want all the chocolate possible in my frozen chocolate beverage. I suppose in theory a person could add extra pumps of chocolate syrup, but it's really not the same. As I recall, another mark against the Fribble® is it's blended in the cup in which it's served, so there's no side tin of leftover Frappe.
@JD...Hah!..I never met Bubbe at KATZ, and if I did, I forgot. I'm sure he wasn't ZADDY....
By the way....My two centavos.... but I think KATZ is overrated. I think every new visitor to NYC should try it just once - for the experience of saying you went there and ordered their pastrami... but that's about all. I mean, the sandwich is good, but it's too expensive and the wait is too long. I prefer Carnegie....their pastrami is thinner.....like my hair.
Kid,
Where on Earth did you get the idea that a milkshake doesn’t have ice cream?
@Zÿgötë, A couple things in all dew respect (it's early here and I'm typing outside).
Most of the famous poets are dead. The remaining bad ones continue to write for The New Yorker. Dorothy Parker is also a dead poet who wrote light verse. Sauce for the goose...
You could be right about tomorrow's flatbread week. However, the current trends tells me that they'll probably just run Roti again.
Start off with a proper name at 1D and 1A, then proceed with PPP TO NO END and my enthusiasm is quickly DYING. Follow that up with multiple lookee here-lookee there clues and my consternation FESTERS. THE ULTRA RICH icing on the cake however, was a Natick in NE corner with a proper name, a Spanish term, and African term, and a word most people have never heard of.
If I’d liked the puzzle better it probably wouldn’t bother me but Johnny Carson‘s “home state” - which is to say the one he often referred to as his home, as in where he grew up in a city called Norfolk - was Nebraska. Yes his birth state was IOWA and that would’ve been a good clue for 3D.
I'm with those who found this very tough - in fact, the high DRAMA of a Wednesday DNF loomed until I realized that the one who's got the goods could not be a SHOPping...[something], erased the second p, and saw KANYE and the SHOPKEEPER. Whew.
After the second reference to 56-A, I went to see what it was: ONE PERCENT helped me get the MILK, but for the others I needed crosses galore. I enjoyed the challenge of the theme and the tricky clues, but the many members of my "No idea" group kept this out of the "fun" zone for me.
No idea: MEL, ZADDY, KANYE, DORA as clued, STINE, HOMIE, EILEEN. Do-overs: gala before IMAC, reTArd before DETAIN. Help from previous puzzles: AMAS.
Rex is correct on the odds.
That is what odds mean. A 1/2 chance of winning is one to one odds. A 1/3 chance of winning is 2 to 1 odds. Say you bet $1 10 times at 9 to 1 odds. You should lose 9 times on average. And win once. Nine losses mean you have lost $9. Winning once means you have won $9 and gotten your original dollar back. Thus you break even.
Amen.
@Anon-Kid is absolutely right. It's a NE thing, as I found out the first time I ordered a "milkshake" in NH and my girlfriend advised me that if I wanted ice cream in it I'd better order a "frappe". That was some time ago and things are slowly changing, but you can't be too careful.
FWIW, I've heard that in RI such a thing is known as a "cabinet", but have not verified that one.
I finished it but this puzzle annoyed me.
My mother used to call her Grandfather Zaddy....
Paul Rudd was just named People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive. I guess that makes him a Super ZADDY.
Tough puzzle for a Wednesday but an enjoyable solve. Liked the revealer which was a total surprise when I finally got to 56A. Also loved the clue for QUACKS. Plus now I know how to spell KARATS.
Good job, Chen Laurings.
I had SHiPmastER before SHOPliftER before finally getting SHOPKEEPER which I cheated to get having no clue for KANYE. No issue with our other K as I spent enough time in NYC in grad school to know KATZ. That was a hard clue for DORA, my kids watched most of their TV at the babysitters. I have very little patience for it, so we did other stuff when I was home. Why aren't there ever any Pokemon clues? Those I might get!
Did anyone want another word for 42 down? I had --iCKS and my mind went straight to the gutter. Eventually saw that it was WON AT not WON iT. Phew!
If you add my best Wednesday time to my average Wednesday time you get about how long it took to do this puzzle. Not easy at all.
An amount is, to a maths, a scalar; e.g. one pound, while a percent is a ratio 1/100. So if one multiplies the ratio by an amount, one gets another amount. ONE PERCENT isn't an amount. OTOH, ONErEdCENT is an amount.
Couldn't not rid my lower brain stem of Tony Robbins. Haven't, and won't, consult the wiki to see whether they're related (cut from the same huckster cloth, no doubt).
@Rube 850am
1% is unfavorable odds relative to a one in a 100 chance event actually happening. It probably won't. Relative whether it is a good bet it depends on the odds of the payoff vs. the odds of the event happening. If a clue can be correctly interpreted to be correct interpret it that way.
Does that mean the answer could be clued as favorable bet? Yes if you believe in the lemma or law often proposed here. Count me as a no. Do I contradict myself? Good sense is sensibly good. My tautology. The clue is fine as given today.
@Z
Re your Nashery. Is the part you are not saying is having all dead-peeps puzzles necessarily bad or likely bad? Or are you just observing? And how about that puzzle in particular?
I wonder sometimes if these made-up words like ZADDY are just the result of someone misspeaking—she means to say either snazzy of dandy, it comes out ZADDY—and it gets a chuckle and then adopted. I’m gonna use it as soon as I meet someone who’s looking pretty snazzy/dandy. Might be a while, here in central Illinois, another home to flannel and workboots.
I solved without the revealer; I had just the right downs so that I saw the themers easily. I did have SHOPliftER at first, fixed it when nothing else worked for the remaining downs. I wasn’t going to enter the ONE PERCENT fray but, thinking about it made me realize we use percentage as odds a lot these days, as in “Moderna is 95% effective,” or “You have a 5% chance of getting break-through COVID.” Works for me.
So KANYE joined the elite club that The Artist Formerly Known as Prince started. I think I need to reconsider my name; Mary is awfully dull.
"John William Carson was born on October 23, 1925, in Corning, Iowa, … . He grew up in the nearby towns of Avoca, Clarinda, and Red Oak in southwest Iowa before moving to Norfolk, Nebraska, at the age of eight." (Wikipedia)
As @Whatsername (10:38 AM) points out, Carson often referred to growing up in Nebraska. I recall it, especially, since it's where my dad was born and raised.
In any event, when I saw IOWA was the answer, I just assumed he was born there and later moved to Nebraska with his family.
So, I guess 'home state' depends on how one decides to interpret it; or how the law may determine it in certain legal matters. 🤔
___
td 0 (in 1st ot)
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Alas. No more Carnegie
@Z????????? - Jay Leno has a new TV Show, a syndicated revival of You Bet Your Life. Of all people, he has Kevin Eubanks back as his side-kick. Ask random contestants questions, then make fun of them when they don't know the answer. But in a good humored way, so that it's not repulsive, just having people on to make fun of them. Sorta not repulsive. Like Jay Leno.
@jberg:
As @Albie pointed out, one percent can be favorable odds if the pot is big enough.
I am among those who refrain from Lotto tickets until the expected value of the pot exceeds the cost of the ticket. doesn't happen often enough. still haven't won, either. I guess learning math in high school was a waste of time, just like everybody in a Red State.
haven't been to NYC in a double-dog's age, so KATZ was lost. all I could remember was Shor's. Jewish, yes; delicatessen, may be.
@10:33
Where on Earth did you get the idea that a milkshake doesn’t have ice cream?
all of those 'shakes' that come out of a machine like poo from a cow aren't ice cream, they really are just ice milk. some that are made in that green Hamilton Beach spinner are ice milk; depends on how cheap the shop is.
An awful lot in this puz's solvequest was ridin on knowin what 56-Across was. So, like @RP, M&A did the cut & jump real early to the revealer zone, to figure that puppy out.
[This mighta been why a recent MonPuz had a similarly ever-referenced revealer splatzed in up at 1-Across -- as a convenience for the newbie solvers. Queen Erat Demonstrandum.]
Durin the solve, M&A had way less than 1% knowledge about: ORA. MEL. MALO. EILEEN. HOMIE [well, maybe a 1% inklin, on that one]. KATZ/ZADDY. AMAS/RAZR/anything about BuzzFeed. The nanoseconds suffered severe losses. Lotsa learnin & sufferin [sorta like in my college Physics class about Einstein's Relativity Theories].
staff weeject picks: ORA & MEL. Names of mystery, at our house.
Kinda different long-ball additions. No Down entries over 6-long; my fave of the Down long-shorties was QUACKS. Did have some nice 10-long Acrossers, cuddlin up right next to two of the themers -- namely: SHOPKEEPER. DISPENSARY.
Overall, would hafta say very cool theme mcguffin, but the fillins went sorta rogue, at times. Did get a kick out of seein the seldom-acknowledged rogue WO NAT Chinese dynasty, tho [which succeeded the very obscure IN dynasty].
Thanx for gangin up on us again, Max & Benjamin C-L dudes.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
**gruntz**
"Reddit Q&As" = AMAS. Huh?!?
The odds are the odds, whatever they are. The size of the prize has no effect. Say you have a 1 in a hundred chance to win a dime. If the prize is changed to $1,000,000, you still have a 1/100 chance to win.
the whole milkshake thing gets worse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_cream
in big cities, NYC and Boston in my case, you can get an egg cream, which, of course, has neither.
AMAS
Ask Me Anything pluralized.
Pablo,
Ops. I didn’t see kid’s “regionally speaking” qualifier.
As you both rightly note, in New England there is no ice cream in a milk shake.
Which might be just be the most awful, that is so say accurate, example of the phrase Sad But True.
I like New England. I like it a lot. But some of the regionalism are just awful.
PS. Sorry Kid. I too worked a Summer slinging Ice cream. For many years after I couldn’t touch th3 stuff, with one exception— a chocolat3 shake. True.
@Odds Duck:
The size of the prize has no effect.
People who think that way is the reason bookies, whether corner saloon, casino, or Damn Gummint make all the money.
@GILL – You'll be waiting a long time to get into the Carnegie Deli too: it closed in 2016. But it still sells merch online, including a $109 Pastrami Sandwich Kit:
• 1.5 lbs. of pre-sliced Carnegie Deli Pastrami
• (1) 12-ounce bottle of Carnegie Deli Dusseldorf Mustard
• (1) 24-ounce loaf of Carnegie Deli Rye Bread
• (1) 32-ounce jar of Carnegie Deli Sour Pickles
Makes four 6-ounce sandwiches
You'll need some agua to wash it down with.
This puzzle? Totally forgettable.
My favorite comments this morning.
Frantic Sloth (8:11)
Anonymous (8:35)
Gill I. (10:00)
I really liked the theme, and I'm glad to hear some (not all) of you saying that one percent can be considered odds. I like percentages much better than odds, because ... math. I can't really figure out what 7-4 odds means. If you asked me what the odds are that Dems will retain the House and Senate next year, I might say 40%. But if you asked for that in "number-number" terms, I don't know how to do it. Or the odds that someone might call me a ZADDY -- 3% (I'm a little more vain than @Joaquin). No idea in "number-number."
When I saw the "THE" in THEULTRARICH" I noticed more because I knew Rex would object than because I do. I'm pretty forgiving about theme consistency when the answers are this good.
Back to ZADDY -- kind of fun to think about who's a ZADDY and who isn't. Agree that Ryan Reynolds and Idris Elba are (follow the link in Rex's post), and The Rock is not. Patrick Mahomes is and Aaron Rogers is not? Matt Damon is and Ben Affleck is not? Add your own ratings!
@12:27
in New England there is no ice cream in a milk shake.
that isn't remotely true. small soda parlors to Friendly's make milkshakes with ice cream. I always get a strawberry shake, but I have to ask for strawberry ice cream rather than plain vanilla.
the faux shake from that machine is a Dairy Queen (and other Big Business National Brands) creation.
Definitely a challenging Wednesday for me, starting with 5A. I figured "It often surrounds high-maintenance people" was a great clue for "posse" - no crosses fit. The ARK took away posse and replaced it with agitA because I thought 8D might be "tEd" for the motivational speaker. Lots of DRAMA in that small space.
THE ULTRA RIpH is what my 46A looked like because I decided "disdain" was = to SpuRN. Bad, MALu even. I finally reread the clue and reread 56A (which was happily no longer ONE red CENT) and saw how RICH would work. And MALO looks better than MALu, in any case.
Mac and Benjamin, very nice. I thought this was a fun theme.
@Joe D 12:37. WAAAAAAAH. I haven't been back to NYC in over 10 years. I miss it terribly. I miss going to Bloomies at Christmas time; walking all over SoHo. Please don't tell me Blomingdale's is also closed!!!!!
I miss all the deli's; I miss any pastrami on rye, the park and yikes, I could go on.
THERE IS NOICE CREAM IN A MILK SHAKE????? When did that happen and why? I suppose you're going to tell me that nobody puts a cherry on top, as well. What have we come to?
Very slow, until it wasn't. ONE PERCENT MILK came easy, but the PPP throughout was mostly unknown to me.
But yeah, I had often heard of KATZ Deli, though I've never been. Many years ago on our honeymoon I led my wife to another famed deli, Zabar's, and I loved it so much that I never wanted to go to another. I bet there are hundreds of people who chose to live on the Upper West Side solely to be near that place. When we went, the staff went out of their way to be ULTRA New Yorky -- just watching and listening to the staff was worth the price of admission, and the trip up there.
For as a visitor, I have never stayed in that part of town -- most often, I have made my base in what the City Fathers like to call Midtown East. The huge reason for me: I love oysters, and love to go to the Grand Central Oyster Bar, and always stay within walking distance, even though if I live in New York I would most like to live near Gramercy Park.
As if I could ever afford to live there!
@Odd Duck, Would you pay $1000 to win a dime? Would you pay $1000 if they planned to sell a million tickets?
Me too for SHOPliftER and ONErEdCENT based on the clue word “amount”.
@bocanp - I too remember that WREN puzzle, Croce’s?
@old timer 1:15. Since we're talking NYC and deli's, I will add my two centavos to your post about Zabar's....I lived off of Broadway as did my brother - up in the 90's. I use to stop at Zabar's during my walks up-town. After the third visit, I stoped going. I found the people who worked there incredibly rude. I had my daughter in a stroller (small one) and minding my own business when the Manager told me I was blocking the aisle and to please leave. I ignored him and went up to the deli counter to order some smoked salmon. He followed me and yelled to get out. He told me he was the Manager and he did't need my business. I threw my salmon at him (true story...you had to have known me) and told him I would let everybody on earth know what a "pendejo" he was. He yelled back that he didn't care because everybody loved his store....
Even though I knew, or could guess, most of it, there was too much PPP for me to fully enjoy the good stuff about this one. If I hadn’t known KATZ I’d have been up s*#t creek. I did learn AMAS. BET we’ll see that one again. Plus, I didn’t try to get the revealer, so was thinking the references were really weak: “LOW FAT MILK is a small amount?” So when I got ONE PERCENT it was an aha moment, but my grumpiness took awhile to fade.
The good:
Gridmates OTIS and ORA, OSLO and THOR, ODE and IDYL (and IDLE), BET and UNFAVORABLE ODDS
clever clue for QUACKS
cool clue for AGAVE
The bad:
clue for TO NO END
niche clue for DORA
me trying cAVED before SAVED for “Backed up, say”
The ugly:
ODOR crossing FESTERS
WONAT
ZADDY
All three: Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo
Yes, Enrico Morricone was born November 10, 1928. Famous for his film scores, he was also a conductor, an accomplished trumpet player, and composer of orchestral and chamber works. Right now I’m listening to his 20-minute Concerto per Orchestra (1957). It’s intriguing - imaginative writing, great orchestration and, as you might expect, full of DRAMA.
If you prefer something blue, check out Bobby Rush, born the same day 5 years later, in this amateur video from a show in August of this year in Ruleville, MS.
@GILL I.:
I found the people who worked there incredibly rude.
Ah the memories!!! In the Faneuil Hall Marketplace was (RIP) Durgin-Park; had most of the second floor. Food was OK, but folks, many tourists and many Damn Gummint worker bees (a few steps from Government Center, aka Scollay Square, also RIP) came for the ambiance, such as it was.
"The service was also a partial hold-over from the time of its founding, as the waitstaff were encouraged to adopt a "surly" attitude and "backtalk" the clientele." "
the wiki
Old timer,
The Oyster Bar rocks. I can say this because I once had a lunch meeting there with Jimi Hendrix’s attorney. Or I suppose it was his estate’s attorney. I kid you not, he wore a light purple suit. And while I’ve had oysters there many times, for some reason that day I had there Salad Nicoise. Meh.
As for Zabar’s… I’ve been there plenty too, but I’m no New Yorker, so I’ll leave it to Gill, Nancy Joe DiPinto (and any other Big Apple folk, sorry for forgetting where all the usuals live) to weigh in on whether Zabar’s is or isn’t a deli. One thing I don’t think anyone would dispute, if it is a deli it is nothing like Katz’s or the old Carnegie or Stage Door etc.
There is a very funny Curb Your Enthusiasm episode that is about mixing up 1% for different things. I wonder if that was the inspiration….
Handup for ONErEdCENT.
Also for SAtED before SAVED.
@GILL I.
Sounds like the manager was still perfecting his soup recipes.
Okay. I’m NOT going to get into whether one percent is an unfavorable odds but I feel compelled to comment (defend?) the whole “milkshake kerfuffle.” It started with @Kid P saying that ice cream was NOT in Friendly’s milkshakes (and he said maybe it was regional) then it moved on to a comment that ice cream isn’t in milkshakes in New England. Egads!
From the Midwest and stopped at a Friendly’s on the way to Cape Cod (20 years ago) and ordered a chocolate milkshake…omg…delicious! It was thinner than milkshakes that I’m used to but so chocolatey and nice I said I wanted to stop on the way back. I totally believe they do NOT put in ice cream, real or faux. Is (or rather WAS) this a New England thing…who knows. I just know that the presence of ice cream milk shakes in NE doesn’t mean they didn’t originally NOT include ice cream. Good grief…the presence of that awful burnt bean process coffee from the upper west coast over the entire US is testament to the fact that things change.
Oof, forgot. Gill, you do know that both you AND the manager were 100% correct, right.
I mean they are the worst, just despicable at times. And…. The store is beloved. Just sayin.
Curious how you’ll adjudicate its identity.
@Gill I…best story today on throwing salmon at the manager! He sounds like “the soup Nazi” from Seinfeld. That means he deserved it!
@jae (1:33 PM) re: WREN
Likely so. In any event, it came in handy today; didn't hesitate to drop it in! :)
___
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Friendly's Menu Danville PA
Fribble Milk Shake
Our legendary, super-thick milk shake in your choice of any flavor of our creamy, homemade ice cream
Sounds like they use ice cream round here. I believe they would get in trouble if the ice cream were ice milk.
I doubt if the ice cream part of Friendly's would have regional variations that extreme.
@Albatross shell…I don’t know when @Kid P worked there. I just know that 20 years ago I don’t think the milkshake had ice cream OR ice milk. The kerfuffle continues! ;)
Like I said…back then it was “creamy” and “substantial” but NOT super-thick. I really liked that…plus it was VERY chocolatey (sic).
I have a didgeridoo made from an agave. If only I could get the breathing right, I might actually be able to play it one day.
Hands up for KATS/SADDY. But SADDY looked wrong so I changed the S to pencil, then when I got no Happy Pencil it was an easy fix.
Yes the fill was pretty poor, but I enjoyed the theme. Agree that the ODDS answer was a weaker one. Also a bit suspicious of the DYING BATTERY... my phone has never gotten that low; it shuts itself off first.
[Spelling Bee: yd pg -1; missed this word though I do recall missing it once before. Maybe I should make a list like @bocamp. I am pretty proud of getting all 4 of the long ones! Especially the one he missed; dunno how I came up with that.]
I live on the Upper West Side and go to Zabar's for lox and chopped liver frequently. It's not really a restaurant, so I wouldn't go there for a pastrami sandwich for lunch.
I know I’ve gone over three. @Pabloinnh…I see you already pretty much said what I did…only difference…I LIKED it! Sorry folks…I have a lot of energy on shakes I guess.
LOL, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that we're going to debate whether or not milk shakes have ice cream in them. In New England, where I and others here stating such grew up, they didn't. Milk shakes were precisely that, shaken milk. What the rest of the country considered a milk shake was a frappe. This isn't stupid, or a lie, or an idiocy. Just true. Hoagie, anyone? Or is that a hero? Oh, you mean a sub.
@Old Timer, love Midtown East as well. Pretty much always there when I go back. Check out Dock's and Seafire Grill, we'll, and Crave, if you ever need to tear yourself away from Grand Central.
To make things more obscure, 40 miles from Boston in Rhode Island we also had milkshakes without ice cream, but called the frappes cabinets.and the Fri bled Awful Awful.
Sadly these terms are dying out.
@thfenn. Yes on "frappe".
Otherwise, do you mean a grinder?
Meant to add that hoagies, subs, and heros are grinders. Well, maybe Italians too. Don't know how that got dropped, sorry.
Ask Me Anything - AMA
@pabloinnh, definitely. Not good writing on my phone...
I think I was only in Zabar's once and it was a long time ago (I'm very rarely in that vicinity). I don't recall it having a sit-down eating area or regular deli-counter set-up like Katz's. I tend to think of it more as a specialty foods store with a selection of deli items.
No one's ever mentioned to me that the staff is rude though. Maybe @GILL just drew a rotten apple that day.
IHe was talking about New England., especially Eastern Mass. and Rhode Island where "milkshake" still means among older people a drink without ice cream.
Alas indeed. R.I.P.
@thfenn:
from day one (my Pappy grew up with them) the Blake's Friendly's milkshake was made with ice cream. this was/is western Massachusetts, not that Big City on the Haabaa. we never called it a frappe; again, that's a nomenclature peculiar to that Big City on the Haabaa (and some parts of the Mafia State to the southwest of Fall Rivaaa). to further cloud the issue (if anyone cares any longer), The Fribble existed for some years as just a bigger milkshake, with ice cream, but it turned out that another regional chain (midwest, IIRC) had copyrighted/trademarked the term. forget what it was called after that.
I've no idea where the notion that a NE milkshake is sans ice cream. I do know, for a fact, that Dairy Queen and other industrial scale national chains use that big churning machine with the handle controlled sphincter which lets out an ice milk concoction. as with any industrial big corporate entity, they cheapen anything figuring that the hoi polloi will pay a premium for inferior goods just because the adverts on the teeVee tell them to. if you go to the DQ site, you'll see 'soft serve' as the main ingredient. guess what? that just a way to say, 'cheap ice milk'. DQ isn't the only industrial scale national chain to sell 'shakes' filled with 'soft serve'. save a penny, make a buck.
You are right.
Apparently, ice boxes were sometimes called ice cabinets. So the drinks were named ffor where the ingredients came from, per the American Dictionary of Regional English.
1960's Eastern New England most definitely if you ordered a milkshake you would not get ice cream.
Katz may be the most famous - but there are better. Barney Greengrass on Amsterdam, 2nd Ave in midtown, David’s on Nostrand and probably my favorite deli in the city - Liebman’s in Riverdale. All pastrami heaven.
SB Stuff Alert
@okanaganer (2:48 PM)
It's possible you got that unusual word because you're bringing annexes (or the lack thereof, in this case) to bear on your solving, in some cases subconsciously. That's a great skill, and one that I'm trying to improve upon.
The word you missed yd would benefit from one of @TTrimble's 'word clouds'. Imo, it complements this one, in more ways than one.
I have @jae to thank for the word List idea. I study it before or after solving. I welcome you (or anyone else) to make it your own: Here.
___
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Didn't want to put in RAZR... had one but it was definitely not a flip phone... maybe mine was later (who can remember).
Weirdly kinda agreed with Rex today, LOWFATMILK and DYINGBATTERY good, UNFAVORABLEODDS and THEULTRARICH not so good, but all easy enough to get.
ZADDY new to me but I can think of someone who fits! And please let me stop at KATZ's next time in NYC (this weekend! Yay!)
Thx BenjaMax! (hi @Lewis)
The ice milk issue refers to an ice milk drink that is still popular in Rhode Island. at a local chain. Friendly's. Fribble, note the capital F, was until recently made with ice milk says Google. Even when it was made with ice milk, it was clearly labeled so there was no confusion.
FWIW, I got the Fribble naming situation backwards. Friendly's sold them as 'Awful Awful' (as long ago as when I was growing up). That was the naming they got in trouble for, so became Fribble, not the other way round. I knew you wanted that cleared up.
@ Sun Volt 5:06 I'm not sure that Riverdale qualifies as being "in the city." I mean, technically, yes, but in real life? Not so much.
I thought this was a great puzzle but for one of the crosses in the NE.
Liked the theme.
Always amused at the number of folks here who have never even attempted to create a puzzle yet who can be so dismissive and rex-like. It's a little sad.
@Joe D. 4:25...Ok so I'm going to break the law today and go over 3 posts but @Z does it all the time and we all love him for it.
NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING ALERT....
@Joe....I'm going to tell my "rotten apple that day" story:
I spent most of my working life dealing with customers....We all know that there are people that come in all moods, aura's, character, conditions, yada yada yada. Anyway, before I went into sales at Mexicana, I was a ticket agent. One day, we had a line out the door at out ticket office on Union Square in San Francisco. Our clients were mostly Mexican migrant workers waiting patiently to buy their tickets to Guadalajara, Mexico. Some would bring their very hard earned US dollars in brown paper bags to pay their way back home for the season and it would endear me no end. I use to chide some of them, telling them people could steal. I got to know many of them by name and I knew I loved my job.
Anyway....I was about 8 months pregnant with our son, waiting on these delightful people, when a travel agent cut into the line and yelled at me that he had a ticket in will-call that he wanted to pick up. I smiled and told him that he'd have to wait in line...like everybody else. He yelled at me that he had no time and that if it weren't for him, we'd be out of business. I told him he'd still have to wait. He picked up a ticket validator (we had to use them in those days) that weighed about 10 pounds and threw it at me. It missed because I ducked. In those days, and because I was wearing a uniform, I couldn't go behind the counter and deck him. Believe me....as big as a whale I was, I would've.....Instead I screamed at him.....
My Supervisor was very sympathetic but told me that part of my job was putting up with scum.
Now back to Zabar's....I was never rude.....The Manager was. His job is/was to make sure that his clients want to come back. Even if you have the best reputation on the block......I will never go back and I hope other's won't as well. It wasn't a rotten apple day...it showed how that store doesn't care....
End of my story of woe.....
Curiously both easy and hard. The NW augured "easy": OTIS goes in without hesitation, and how many four-letter states do you know beginning with I? SPF and ARK -- pre-Monday easy, especially ARK which is remedial. (MEL who?)
But then the NE (which was at the end for me) seemed strangely niche: ZADDY is new-fangled, and unknown to me before today. And KATZ was a bit of a desperation move based on thinking "Jewish name" beginning with C or K -- the odds were K -- and I wasn't aware of AGAVE as a didgeridoo material. Whew!
ZADDY. I'm thinking maybe someone like Jeff Goldblum, who is eccentrically and unabashedly stylish in his own skin, and well old enough that "ZADDY daddy" feels fitting. (Although, a rapid perusal of the internet turns up an occasional strange-sounding reluctance to admit that "daddy" is part of the equation.) I'm not sure George Clooney would fit. Would he? He can be counted on to appear in black tie at virtually any moment of the day, and he's photogenic enough, but I'm guessing that ZADDY implies something more individuated, sort of a sui generis stylishness, confident enough to march to a different beat and not worry what the others think.
Heh, I had "UNFAir tABLE ODDS" at first. Table as in blackjack table. Eventually i_ULT (instead of VAULT) became insupportable. This mistake burned away literally billions of nanoseconds. RAZR -- yuck. Unknown to me.
Entertaining discussion of frozen concoction preparations and NY eateries that I am not competent to join, despite currently living in NE not far from NY. I just always naturally assumed that a Fribble was a frozen Ibble and never gave that a second thought.
yd pg -6?? forgot about it and never got back to it
td 0
Brilliant
Was 99% there except for ZADDY/RAND cross. Never heard of either, so DNF by one square
Am I the only one who knows HOMIE the clown from 'In Living Color' - but I guess that was HOMEY
Solved (except for the one square) without the help of the revealer
@anon 6:07pm to sum things up:
"[newport creamery] is known for Awful Awful milkshakes, made from blended syrups and a proprietary ice milk. The drink started at the New Jersey–based chain, Bond's, in the 1940s. The name comes from a Bond's customer who called it "awful big and awful good". In 1948, Bond's licensed it to Newport Creamery and then to Massachusetts-based Friendly's. The terms of the license mandated the two New England businesses not sell it in New Jersey, leading the expanding Friendly's chain to rebrand it as a "Fribble", and later changing its formula to be more like a traditional milkshake with ice cream instead of ice milk. When Bond's went out of business in the 1970s, Newport Creamery purchased the trademark and continues to serve the original recipe."
and by the way, awful awfuls are "drink three, get one free!" my mom said her brothers used to do this with some frequency back in the day. (1960s) i'd never make it through even two. :)
@thfenn 3:58 -in Philly, some say that hoagies are cold sandwiches whereas heroes are warm. I don’t think that is universally true, but my guess is that there are subtle differences in some of those sandwich types to the purists
Just to confirm, dairy farmers do not have cows that produce milk with 1% fat content.
They have cows that produce milk, and then an industrial establishment called a "dairy" processes the milk, coming up with cream, whole milk, 2% milk, 1% milk, and skim milk as some of their products.
So the chances that a dairy farmer would ever use the term "low fat milk" in a business conversation are near zero. Bad cluing.
Villager
@Unknown 6:13p - if you worked for Transit and rode the 1 train to 242nd once or twice a week you’d have a different take.
i liked it, and didn't take issue with any of the themers. but as to the rest, the PPP did swing heavily in my favor so this was easy for me. i did guess TIM before MEL (tim robbins is...someone who did...something, right? it's a name anyhow...), LIST before QUIZ, PESTERS before FESTERS...and i spelled EBSEN wrong at first pass so i was left wondering what kind of frothy drink a PRAPPO was. oops!
i don't associate HOMIE with any clown other than the one on in living color from back in the day - but in googling it to ensure i didn't dream up entire decades of "homie don't play that", it turns out that clown is spelled HOMEY. well, the more you know.
for anyone still not entirely sure on ZADDY, it can be summed up very simply and accurately as "current-era jeff goldblum."
and as a born and bred rhode islander who has been living in the boston area for the past twenty years, i feel compelled to weigh in on the ice cream drink convo. yes, a milkshake really is/was just shaken milk. that said, we have "regular" milkshakes (with ice cream) and unless it is specifically stated, OR you see both milkshakes and frappes on the menu, it's safe to assume a milkshake has ice cream. (or some facsimile thereof.) cabinet is also still used here and there, but somehow only ever coffee. coffee cabinet. never heard anyone order a chocolate cabinet. (kind of like grinder - meatball grinder! definitely. always. but any other filling...a sub.) frappes and cabinets are pretty thick. awful awfuls (awful big, awful good) can be had at the newport creamery and run a bit thinner, as i prefer. drink three get one free! fribbles USED to be sort of thin and lumpy (in a very good delicious way) but several years ago i stopped by a friendly's, craving one, and was disappointed to find it was nothing more than a run of the mill thick milkshake, and an artificial tasting one at that. sadge.
@stephanie
"for anyone still not entirely sure on ZADDY, it can be summed up very simply and accurately as "current-era jeff goldblum." "
A-HA! I knew it!
Thanks all.
Spent day down when thinking about my dementia, up while savoring having lived,
. C’est la vie.
@GILL – the Zabar's manager does sound like a nightmare and you did the right thing. I was just musing that in all the years of people raving about the place, I never heard anyone talk about the staff's attitude, but @Anon 2:04 also said they are rude. Maybe the regulars enjoy the abuse.
I ate at Durgin-Park in Boston once, and the service's reputation, as noted by @Boston Blackie 1:58, preceded it. It did not disappoint. We had a waitress who looked and sounded like Bette Davis in her "Baby Jane" era, and when she brought plates to the table she slammed them down so hard I thought they would shatter into pieces.
@anon 7:47 seems our comments were in the queue simultaneously - can't believe nobody else mentioned in living color, but at least we have each other :p
@TTrimble nailed it!
also, one last unrelated thought but don't want to make an extra comment out of it - i didn't read the "yeezus" clue as a song title but rather, a nickname for KANYE. much like sean combs was puff daddy, puffy, p diddy, diddy, etc, "yeezus" is just one of kanye's many names..."familiarly", you might say ;) (tbh i didn't even know there was a song or album called yeezus - i know plenty of kanye's music just from hearing it, but probably couldn't come up with any song or album titles if asked.) looking at wikipedia, i see yeezus came out in 2013, but he's been putting out albums since 2004. i don't think i realized that, or just how extensive his solo discography was. TIL.
A pretty egregious error seems to have slipped past the editors and this thread.
Johnny Carson was from NEBRASKA not IOWA.
Beginning the long, slow process of vacation catch-up. Not sure what is worse, KATZ/KARATS or KATZ/ZADDY Guessed right, but on Wednesday we shouldn't need to guess. And on every day of our lives, we should not need to know ZADDY.
Fine. Not terrific. Not among the top ONEPERCENT. But good enough by today’s lower NYT standards.
NO IOU DRAMA
Against UNFAVORABLEODDS (she OMITs),
EILEEN WONAT THE QUIZ event,
"Now I won't SCORN THEULTRARICH,
I'm ONE of THE ONEPERCENT."
--- BARB & NICK KATZ
My utter, ongoing lack of tech savviness (I have no cell phone 'cept an old traCfone I use in emergencies, and do not participate in "social media") cost me another 1-letter dnf. So...am I a crossword one-percenter?
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for the phone to ring
I'm astounded by how many people on this site didn't know the word zaddy. I'm 70 years old, and have heard and seen zaddy in the wild. However, I must confess, I didn't know exactly what a zaddy was.
Now I have a definition.
Nope, did not know ZADDY. Filled it in but asked self WTF. Never heard of zamn either. OFL's link cites rap USES. No can do, no, I can't go for that, can't go for that.
OONA Chaplin, yeah baby.
@D,LIW, I can't make that phone ring. Reason forthcoming.
OK puz,
Generally have to go with Rex on this one.
The long, themed acrosses are fine. The revealer is okay. I like ‘NUFF and am a fan of DORA. Could have done without ZADDY. Thought the VAULT was more a springboard affair than an event with a table.
Lesson for the day: Beware of QUACKS.
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