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Display of mentalism / TUE 12-21-21 / Ingredient in perfume and potpourri / Long thin strip used in building construction / Developer of the game Breakout / B or C of the Spice Girls
Tuesday, December 21, 2021
Constructor: Guilherme Gilioli
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (that one part in the SW really slows things down ... the rest is very easy)
Word of the Day: SPLINE (46D: Long, thin strip used in building construction) —
noun
• • •
The plural of "elk" is ELK. The ELKS are members of a fraternal order (you used to see them in the crossword, in days of yore, as the BPOE). There's NE'ER any reason to clue ELKS as a plural of the animal. He who does so ERRS (I mention NE'ER and ERRS because they compound the unloveliness of ELKS corner). YETTO is among the ugliest partials I've ever seen. Looks like I have my friend Mike Nothnagel to blame for introducing that one into the NYTXW and from there into the crossword wordlist ecosystem. But that was ten years ago, and it's only appeared one time between then and today. Here are some alternatives. They're not all great, but they're all YETTO-free, and that ain't nothin':
I see now that some of these have duplications elsewhere in the grid (SON, YEN), but, I dunno, make it work.
What else? Oh, I wrote NOTABLY before NOTEDLY, mostly because I can't imagine saying NOTEDLY, ever (29A: With special importance). That's all I have to say about this puzzle. Good day.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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98 comments:
Tough. I had Korn before KISS before I read the down clues. Bottom half was tougher than the top. ORRIS ROOT was a WOE. Plus it took me way too many nanoseconds to realize HARE was two syllables not one.
Clever but @Rex is right about some of the fill. Liked it quite a bit more than he did. An interesting debut.
The theme is a bit... contorted?
25 across had WINTER SPORTS but changed it to ALPINE SPORTS but had to change it back.
This puzzle reminds me of the tragedy of why charlatans and fakers like Yuri Geller live comfortable lives, with millions of gullible fools adoring them. James Randi exposed Geller and other frauds like Peter Popoff, yet Randi died kinda unheralded, while Geller fakes on, and Popoff is still a prime time staple of certain cable channels who, I guess, aren't too proud to take his money so he can continue fleecing the gullible.
[SB Tues pg -2; kinda stuck.]
Thx Guilherme, for this creative, SPOONy offering! :)
Easy-med.
Smooth sailing all the way on this one. No hitches.
Fave radio station while in h.s. was KISn (Vancouver, WA/Portland, OR area)
Most enjoyable solve. :)
@jae
Took a few hours, but Croce's 668 finally fell, to my great delight! See you next Mon. :)
@kitshef (1:00 PM yd)
Thx for your research and pointer to @TTrimble's prescient gateway to Sunday's acrostic 'mystery' theme word. :)
And Kudos to @Joe for remembering that word! :)
@CDilly52
Pax 🕊
___
yd pg -2*
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Got the SPOON thing early on and just filled in all the spoons with letters already in place. Pretty easy, as easy as yesterday’s puzzle. 19 O’s if I counted correctly. Woo Hoo!
yep, ORRIS ROOT and SPLINE made this a tough Tuesday, and not very fun.
How can you not know SPLINE?
Everybody’s got their wheelhouse but that’s living in a chicken coop.
I use SPLINE every day, although I suppose I lead a more exciting life than most people.
@JOHN X: You'll have to 'spline that one.
I caught on to the theme once WINTER SPORTS fixed a typo in 7D. I meant to type SCARS but it came out SCARA and I didn't notice until the cross made no sense. Like @Rex, I had NOTabLY before NOTEDLY, but unlike @Rex, I had NOTabLe before NOTabLY. The SW wasn't terrible for me because I knew I'd never get the long thin strip at 46D from the clue so I concentrated on the acrosses and the theme letters.
Isn't YETTO just the singular of YETi?
Pretty much in agreement with Rex. Got the willies at ELKS.
A Tuesdee that Tuezzes like a boss.
🧠.5
🎉
Not exactly a good first impression at 1A with everyone’s favorite kealoa, followed by Jackie ROBINSON and Jack PAAR and I’m thinking “Here we go, this puzzle is going to skew dead.” So not exactly the warm fuzzies as I go down the west coast and suddenly there’s potpourri stinking up the place. Soon enough we run into LON Chaney and Frida Kahlo and astronomical ENOS and all the dead celebrities totally counteract any interest the SPOON BENDING might have engendered.
To be fair, the puzzle doesn’t actually skew dead, but the cultural center is probably 1976 and there’s nothing in the puzzle from this century (URL comes close, but the WWW is a child of the 1990’s, too). Sure, KISS still gets out their walkers and puts on the occasional concert but we heard Beth calling in 1976. I guess we should be happy that the go to MEL clue is now The Spice Girls and not the baseball player, but when 1996 is the most modern thing in the puzzle it’s hard to be appreciative. I should add, because people frequently misunderstand this, there’s nothing wrong with the PPP that is hear, it’s the absence of anything from this century that’s so frustrating. I blame the editorial team for this. There’s nothing keeping them from using 21st century clues on occasion.
Not sure about Rex’s mentalism rant. Are there really all that many people who don’t realize it’s a magic trick? I thought everyone knew it was a con so it hardly needs explaining. However, I am 100% Team Rex on NOTably being a word I would use while NOTEDLY isn’t.
@Roo late yesterday - 😂🤣😆 - Exactly.
Dammit. here not hear and now, because of @Frantic Sloth, Elvis is singing “In the Yetto” in my head and I need an ear dewormer.
@rex -- "crossword wordlist ecosystem" -- Hah!
This one was over fairly quickly for me; after the first two theme answers appeared, it was, with apologies to Rocky Horror, Let’s Do The Spoon Warp Again. It was a fun sprint, and the theme echoed the recent BOGGLE puzzle by Trenton Charlson.
Afterward, I relaxed by gazing at the grid, looking for pleasing finds, and there were three palindromes (OTTO, EYE, NUN), not to mention more than a few four-or-more letter semordnilaps of common crossword answers (AJAR, SATE, DOOR, STAB, IRON, LOOT, ENOS, ETAL, TOONS, SLOOPS). The puzzle mixed WEED with SPOON BENDING, and I thought that for some that might make a good combination.
Way to stick with it, GG, continuing to submit puzzles after initial rejections, and congratulations on your debut, not to mention being the first Brazilian NYT puzzle constructor. Obrigada!
@Z. You're being naive about the capability of humans to believe nonsense. Witness the Trump "era" and all the bullshit going on. Only 60-65% of Americans are Covid vaccinated. The rest resist, mainly due to nonsense that they believe. People believe in a virgin birth and rising from the dead (neither of which is possible). I could spend the entire day making a list but you get the idea. @okanaganer labels these folks gullible. I label them stupid.
I’m with the ORRISROOT/SPLINE is a Tuesday WOE contingent - maybe they should have gone with only four bent spoons in the grid if that SW section was the best they could come up with. I took the bait on the slight misdirection on INCH (Part of a foot) and had a “you got me on that one” moment.
Rex sounds pretty certain that the capital S at the end of ELKS is Verboten (bonus points to me for sneaking in a foreign word, albeit one that I knew before I landed in CrossWorld) - is there merit to his assertion that it is that settled (and who [whom?] is the final arbiter on such matters ?). I wonder if Rex knows what he’s talking about, since he’s probably done like 10,000 crossword puzzles, or if he’s just being a pompous gasbag again.
Korn before KISS and Iamb before INCH made that section a mess. Took awhile to sort that out.
Knew SPLINE, but ORRIS ROOT was new to me, as was the definition of BARITONE. For the tougher words, the crosses seemed fair enough to get them. EARN over EAR reminds me of the recent adjacents of DOTIME and DOTNET.
Enjoyed the puzzle. I really liked how the SPOONS are bent rather than having the letters being more jumbled, and all of the bends are unique.
Is a eunuch in a TOGA DEBONEd?
Hidden Diagonal Word (HDW) clue for today:
[Shrug] (3 letters, answer below)
Have to agree with Rex on this one, as far as the ORRIS ROOT/SPLINE thing goes. Reminds me of the old Sesame Street song "One (or in this case two) of these things is (are) not like the others ...). It's not so much that they aren't gettable from the crosses or even that they are inappropriate for this day of the week. They just don't fit with the rest of this puzzle standing out down there like twin sore thumbs.
Hidden Diagonal Words in the grid today included GOO and POO (but no ROO today; sorry @ Roo Monster, that was yesterday).
Ok, on to the HDW of the day answer:
MEH (starts at 38A and moves SW) Sounds like how a lot of folks are feeling about today's puzzle, although it can be rendered as its semordnilap HEM, of "hem and haw" fame--which might describe other reactions to our puzzle today.
Shame 52A could not have been made into URI somehow.
The plurals of wapiti and elk are wapiti and elk, so I guess there is some consistency in the wrongness.
ORRIS ROOT???!!?!!?!??
Never noticed ORRISROOT or SPLINE because all the crosses were easy, especially with the bent SPOON to help.
Easy-medium for a Tuesday.
Once I got into the flow here it went pretty quick. Some oddball trivia to be sure - the SPOON permutations seem to be restrictive. Tied Sinatra to the best is YET TO come and CROON stack. This guy was never mistaken as a CROONer however.
Probably followed everyone with NOTabLY at first. ELKS is technically allowable but I’ve never heard it used. AERIE and AERATE caught my eye. I can thank my taste for Bombay for knowing ORRIS as it’s one of the botanicals used - at one point the ten or twelve of them were listed on the bottle.
Enjoyable Tuesday solve.
Totally in agreement with Rex here: I agree that the SW was un-Tuesday [ORRIS ROOT, KRISHNA, TOONS, and LSD ("visuals?"), was more Wednesday, though the theme did help complete it], and NOTEDLY is just...no. But cute to have a Tuesday theme (a theme which helped) - and a cute theme at that; got me thinking of all the things one could "bend" or "hook" or "slice" or "spread" or "skip" or "stack" in future puzzle constructions. INCH was a little Tuesday smile, 'cause I had ARCH at first: an intentional misdirection, I think.
Hand up for actually knowing SPLINE, but ORRISROOT? Not so much. Also, no idea why, but I crave a consonant at the start of that word. 🤷♀️
@Z 635am 🤣🤣 And yes, you're welcome "hear and now" and again. And again and again and again.
@kitshef 728am 🤣👍 URI would have been the best part of the grid!
@Southside Johnny - I suspect Rex was joshing, but assuming he was serious I’d say he was both correct and incorrect at the same time. If we’re talking about the deer-like animal it is one ELK and two ELK. So he’s right about that. And the Benevolent and Protective Order of ELKS uses ELKS (but normally only appear in xwords as BPOE, not written out in full) so he’s right that the lodge would be an acceptable clue for ELKS. But we’ve also seen other examples in the NYTX of making something like ELK into a category in order to pluralize the word with an S. So we get “Wapitis” as a clue to indicate that we are looking for various kinds of ELK breedS, how many different types of ELKS are there? I dunno. But this seems to be a defensible usage, so Rex is wrong when he suggest that the BPOE ELKS is the only acceptable ELKS. To be clear, I think this “group noun to fudge a plural” dodge is suboptimal bordering on distasteful, but the world isn’t a perfect place.
@Anonymoose - I suppose you’re correct. I would use “gullible” just because I see some pretty smart people get sucked in. I’ve heard Green Bay’s quarterback respond intelligently and thoughtfully in interviews and then it turns out that he’s just smart enough to be gullible and think “doing my own research” was what he was doing.
After two SPOONs going around corners, it occurred to me that the revealer might have something to do with SPOONBENDING. I mean, what else could it possibly be, after all? And so, no aha! at all, just a see? .
Had STOPS and without paying much attention to the clue wrote in STOPSHORT, which I like, but didn't agree, and messed things up for several nanoseconds.
Hand up on the ORRISROOT mystery, but I have some experience with SPLINEs, so Lucy had no SPLINing to do there. I can now imagine a "fennec fox" with some nice big EARs, and imagination will have to serve, as I have never run into this particular canine. Also his proximity to Mr. Hare sent me down a rabbit hole, which was remedied easily enough.
Nice enough Tuesdecito, GG, you Got Game. Thanks for the fun.
Hands up for knowing ORRIS ROOT but not SPLINE
SB td; I'm hoping for a Crowning as a Queen Bee. 1 more 4-letter to go. I've been a commoner for quite a while.
Not sure why rex was so bent out of shape by this puz.
I thought it was fine for a Tuesday, although NOTEDLY admittedly gets the stinkeye.
I agree. The ORRIS ROOT/SPLINE section was ridiculously hard for a Tuesday. But anything that makes a Tuesday crunchier -- other than a lot of PPP of course -- is fine with me. The puzzle succeeded in holding my attention, at least in the SW.
I'll bet I'm the only person here who witnessed, in person, Uri Geller bending a spoon. I was an editor at the Literary Guild, we had taken his book as an alternate selection, so he came into our conference room and bent a spoon for us. "Damn, how did he do that?" I wondered at the time -- which would have been the 1970s. But this is the Internet Age when all is knowable. I just went to Google, typed in "How do you bend a spoon?" and, after all these many years, now I know. And now you know too.
He did something a lot more amazing, though, so far as I'm concerned. He asked people to bring something in a sealed envelope and he would say what was in it. My good friend Cathy C. brought the envelope, so I know there was no tip-off. The envelope was passed around and you could not tell at all what was in it. Uri stared at the envelope, then drew a heavy, uneven, black Figure 8 in pencil on a sheet of paper, going over the Figure 8 many, many times. The envelope was opened. Pasted to a sheet of white paper were the hairs of Cathy's Puli (a black dog) -- twisted into a Figure 8. The dog's hairs and the drawing were congruent: same size, same uneven shape (one loop larger then the other), same level of thickness.
Now how the hell did he do that?
I'm going back to Google again. Maybe they'll spill/SPOIL the secrets of this trick too!
I don’t know about STOPSDEAD. Like @pabloinnh, I’ve heard ‘stops short.’ Also, ‘stops dead in its tracks.’. But, not merely ‘stops dead.’
The puzzle would have been better with a spoonerism thrown in.
Count me among those who never heard of ORRIS ROOT but never even saw it because the crosses were so easy. I didn’t care for the bending spoons but still had a pleasant solve.
Another Korn instead of KISS, which I attribute to an old South Park episode. Never knowingly listened to Korn. ORRIS ROOT made me think of Mandrake Root, and that John Doone poem. Agree with @Trey. Enjoyable Tuesday fare. ☺️
It took me FOREVER to unsee the revealer clue as anything but "Display of materialism", which made perfect sense for the Christmas season but was making no sense for either the letters coming up in the answer or the shaded clues.
Also, speaking of HARE KRISHNA, there's a new video out for "My Sweet Lord" for the 50th anniversary of "All Things Must Pass". It's worth watching. Enjoy.
In my early 20s, having relocated from Wisconsin to the Boston area, I developed incapacitating sinus headaches; some days I couldn't do anything but lie in bed, trying to find a head position that would make the pain go away. After trying many things, including a painful surgery, I was finally referred to an allergist. He didn't do any skin tests, just asked me a bunch of questions about my living circumstances, then rattled off a list of things I was allergic to. High on the list was ORRIS ROOT, which he described as present in "cheap perfumes" -- Joy or Chanel didn't bother me at all. It took a few months for me to believe him, but eventually I learned to recognize allergens by scent, and recovered pretty completely.
So that one didn't bother me at all; and i did know SPLINE, although I needed a few crosses to remember it.
ELKS, though -- I think @Kitschef has it right -- the incorrect plural in the clue (plural of wapiti is wapiti) is supposed to indicate the incorrect plural in the answer. Next week: deliberately misspelled clues to indicate misspelled answers. Where will it all end?
I think YETTO was the Holy Roman Emperor between OTTO III and OTTO IV.
Hey All !
How could you not know ORRIS ROOT? I grow it in my garden.
(Har, first, I'm joking. Second, I don't even have a garden!)
If I unintentionally bend my SPOONs, is it still magic? Many a bent one trying to get some ice cream when you first take it out of the freezer. (What now? There's such a thing as a scoop, you say?)
I didn't go all crazy and try to bang my head on @Nancys wall with that ORRIS ROOT/ SPLINE conflagration. The crossers were pretty fair. Most would've figured out the theme by then, and then threw in the SPOON to help. (In the nice light green shaded squares, which the NYTXW site has a lot in place of circles.)
Am I the only one to have STOP Short in for STOPS DEAD? Anyone? Bueller?
Fun TuesPuz, Guilherme. Another debut. Man, people stuck at home because the world shuts down really get creative. New constructors in SPADES.
yd -13 (brain malfunction), should'ves 8
No F's (POO!) *Har*
RooMonster
DarrinV
Oops! Should have ended my comment with obrigado rather than obrigada.
I agree with Rex that spoon bending is not mentalism. Even if the person doing it weren't claiming it was telekinetic powers, it would be sleight of hand, not mentalism.
I disagree with Rex about YETTO. Tony Bennet .
Spline was a total gimme for me, and orris root was at least familiar.
@pablo and @Mikey from El Prado,
I suppose reading all the comments first would be ideal. Thanks for the STOP Short comroderie (sp?).
Wasn't YETTO a Star Wars character? 😁
RooMonster ORRIS ROOT Guy
Almost finished in one pass, except for having to go back and remember that it was PAAR (not Parr), which finished off that block.
I accepted Spline on an article of faith and kept moving by thinking, "Eh, maybe it's an SP Line."
But in that landmark web work that showed up as, "How do you fix a stripped spline?" we learn this. "A wood spline is nothing more than a long, thin strip of wood that acts as a splice between two planks. It is the same thickness as the tongue side of a wood plank. Splines allow the flooring to be worked in opposite directions effectively cutting the installation time in half."
It's a little piece of wood that connects two grooved planks. https://gilfordjohnson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Technical-Center-Hardwood-Spline-2019.pdf
Just think, there may be a Spline under your chair right now and you've never realized it.
Guilherme Gilioli is Brazilian and typically constructs in Portuguese, he says at Xword Info. In the '90s I was editing documents for engineers from many different countries who were writing in English as a second language. I was ribbing one of the South Africans on a sentence we were trying to iron out when he said, "You try thinking in English and writing in Afrikaans." Tip of the hat to Mr. Gilioli. Nice job.
@Z from yesterday. Well explained. Thanks.
@Frantic. @Z, @jberg, Yetto 😀
@Jim Spies, Oh that video is just great! Here's one of While My Guitar Gently Weeps that you might enjoy.
I was at a party in June and they had silver colored plastic forks that looked like real silver. I stuck one on my forehead and it stuck!
I walked around with fork stuck to my head and told everyone that it was because I was vaccinated for Covid.
I avoid entering what seem to be theme entries until I can't fill in any other entries, so I usually don't know the theme until the very end of the solve. That was true today, so I had no idea of the bending spoons even after filling in the shaded squares. Yet still, I enjoyed the puzzle. Perhaps not optimum fill, but I'm all in favor of welcoming new constructors to the puzzle world. And maybe accepting some stuff by newer constructors that is less than optimum is a way of providing positive reinforcement. So I would happily welcome today's constructor and say "Good job but ow improve."
Gee, my memory yesterday about Amoco was backwards. Indeed, Amoco sold unleaded gasoline exclusively before it was legally required to do so. Glad someone caught my error and corrected me. But I think my memory of why there was so much leaded gas was correct.
I think the point of things like the virgin birth is that such things are miracles which by definition are impossible. Or at least unexplainable (until they are). Which is why so many people used to attribute natural phenomena to gods. I guess it's a matter of faith, which sometimes (am I thinking of evolution?) can mislead. I don't see belief in miracles to be the problem: for me, denial of fact is the problem than other things like gullibility.
Vague recollections of ORRIS ROOT, but the crosses all came easily, so didn't give it much thot. Wanted SPLINt, but ANTED wasn't having it.
"Orris is a plant. The root is used to make medicine. Orris root is generally used in combination with other herbs and can be found in homeopathic dilutions and tea preparations.
Orris root is used for “blood-purifying,” “gland-stimulating,” increasing kidney activity, stimulating appetite and digestion, and increasing bile flow. It is also used for headache, toothache, muscle and joint pain, migraine, constipation, bloating, diabetes, and skin diseases.
Historically, orris root was highly prized in the perfume industry. The root develops a pleasant violet-like scent when it dries. This scent continues to improve in storage, reaching its peak in about three years. Orris root was widely used in face powders and other cosmetics until people noticed it was causing allergic reactions. Orris root powder is still used extensively in potpourris, sachets, and pomanders. It even prolongs the scent of the other oils." (WebMD)
@BEE-ER 8:21 AM 🤞 for the 1 :)
___
td 0
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
man took forever to not think of HARE as a mammal. duh. NOTEDLY? clunky word. ORRISROOT never heard of. SPLINE is not in my wheelhouse at all. Got the theme early so that helped filling in the rest. Had STOPshort before STOPDEAD, the only write-over. Kind of a tough Tuesday.
I must live a terribly sheltered life because I had no idea what SPOON BENDING was, much less how it could be considered a display of mentalism. Had to Google to get the picture. Good grief.
Nice effort otherwise. I did give a side EYE to ELKS and NOTEDLY but those weren’t enough to SPOIL the fun.
@Z (6:41) Sarah Palin may be able to help you out with that dewormer. She probably has a personal STORE of ivermectin..
I just filled it in, NW to SW to SE to NE. ORRIS ROOT and SPLINE have been in my lexicon for years, unlike the rap songs and Homer Simpson references that many of you have no problem with. None of those today. My only problem was that it was too damned easy, and I dislike these little game themes with shades, circles and the like.
Not sure if ORRIS ROOT has any hallucinogen qualities, but there does seem to be a subliminal drug theme going on here. According to the Urban Dictionary, a YETTO is a large line of cocaine. WEED is marijuana. And LSD is acid. No wonder we’re seeing so much SPOON BENDING this morning.
Though the term TOONS has been around since the 1930s, it came into popular usage after the film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’
The best TOON quote from the film is Jessica Rabbit’s: “I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way.”
Among LON Chaney’s thousand faces, surely the most memorable is that of the Phantom in the 1925 silent film “Phantom of the Opera.” What he did to himself to create a skull-like appearance does not pass the breakfast test, so I won’t SPLINE it here, but it was a work of art that made the unmasking scene a truly classic moment in cinema history.
The first bent SPOON made me think of Uri Geller and his SPOON BENDING, and that helped the puzzle speed by. I agree about ORRIS ROOT and SPLINE being Tuesday outliers, but somehow I knew the former (from a previous puzzle?) and the latter filled itself in from crosses. Up top, INJURE, SCARS, and SHRAPNEL made for an ominous trio, along with LOOT, STAB, and STOPS DEAD. Maybe Omicron gloom has me seeing the dark side.
Do-overs: my foot part was an iamb before an INCH, and my placemat had a Maze before a MENU. Help from previous puzzles: OTTO, MEL.
You're expecting a breeze from someone who spells William with a G and an H? (I'm just kidding -- Guilherme is a beautiful name from the Portuguese that means "determined protector.")
I'll concede that spline and orris root are beyond Tuesday, but in general I'm okay if a puzzle has a pocket or two harder than the rest. It's like life -- I can be having a fine week and then on Thursday a piano falls on my head.
Happy national crossword puzzle day!!
Thank you, John X! I am a lawyer and I know both SPLINE and ORRIS ROOT and not from crisswords!
Some of the greatsest minds of all time believe in the virgin birth and the resurrection. Augustine and Aquinas are neither stupid nor gullible.
So skew me dead. I enjoyed this enormously. Ok, so I knew ORRIS ROOT and SPLINE, and that certainly helped, but c’mon, as @Leeis said, kudos to our debut constructor for perseverance.
In fact, this theme struck me as one of those. “Where on earth sis that idea come from” the
Es, and it gave me a good chuckle even though I got it after a couple of bent spoons. Creative, crunchy and clever.
My nit is NOTEDLY. I s’pose most words could become adverbs, but I prefer words that at least seem like they could be useful in day to day speech or written work. But sincere congrats to GG today. I am 100% in the l’liked it lots’ column.
Especially the clue for KRISHNA. Did anybody really read it as ha’-re first time ‘round? Certainly not I. Constructors all, I revere you! And okedge eternal gratitude for your toil that I may have my daily fix(es) 😬
dang. had to re-write the revealer. took the clue in the NOUN sense, so BENDING SPOON. which is what the THEMERs are. which is what they're doing. and yes, SPOONing isn't a mental display. at best, a bit of foreplay. at worst, precursor to some ANAL detection.
Another hand up for NOTEDLY being an ironic counterpart to "supposably".
@JD 939am Oh, poor @Jim Spies, but Gof - I love your wise-assery!
@Gio 940am 🤣 Fun and topical party trick! Although, it took me a nano or nine to read it correctly as "on my forehead" so I could stop imagining it as a painful unicorn impression.
@jberg (9:05) I sympathize with your headache dilemma. I’ve suffered for years with debilitating headaches and scents - colognes and perfumes in particular - are among the most powerful triggers.
@okanaganer/12:50
if only they weren't the worst of the worst.
@JOHN X.:
I suppose you're a mathlete?? the mechanical version isn't 'used' by humans all that much, once created.
and who the hell is ROBIN SON?? never made much of a career after that. ROBIN yount, OTOH...
@Trey:
No, just no longer bothered by Juan Hung Lo getting in the way.
@Jim Spies and @Frantic, I was actually just a nitwit. I forgot the link! This is truly great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SFNW5F8K9Y
For the most part, Monday Easy on a Tuesday. Would have been easier if they had actually printed the grey squares in my paper -- my Timeses are printed in Palo Alto, or were, and not in New York. Still, a fast time and an easy solve. Took a while to remember that Geller bent SPOONS, so that was the hard part for me.
It seems to me ELKS is one of those plurals in common use that can also be used in the singular as a collective noun. You may go hunting for bear, deer, elk, or antelope, but if you visit our famous National Parks such as Yellowstone or Grand Tetons, you will see, and be in danger of running into, ELKS, bears, antelopes, but not "deers". Think of it this way: When you get back, you may tell your friends you saw several bears, ELKS, antelopes, etc., but you cannot say you saw several deers. Deer is the outlier here, in terms of English usage.
(And typing this, my spellcheck complains only about "deers".)
As a mathematician spline was easy. Agree with Rex on much of the rest of the fill though.
I think it was @Bocamp who mentioned homeopathy. Homeopathy is one of the biggest B.S. scams ever perpetrated. One of my favorite publications is "Skeptical Inquirer". I've been reading it for years. It's quite enlightening. HERE'S A LINK for anyone interested.
I know where the Met and the Whitney are, but where’s the Frckin’ brief?
Can’t begrudge the LSD, WEED, NASAL ORRISROOT MENU after the trauma of 6D, 7D and 8D: INJURE, SCARS, SHRAPNEL..
Nice double debut (language/NYT) Guilherme Gilioli.
My favorite comments this morning.
Son Volt (7:40)
Nancy (8:30)
bocamp (10:00)
Joseph Michael (10:58)
Hand up for STOP Short before STOPS DEAD.
hand up for wondering about the ORRIS ROOT / SPLINE Venn Diagram. The options are knew neither, knew one, knew the other, knew both, recognized one after it was filled, recognized the other after it was filled, recognized both after the fill. I’m in the last group.
My Sweet Lord
I saw this the other night when I went to YouTube to stream College Nationals and Uncle Google thought I’d be interested. I hate it when Uncle Google is right.
@JD - Well explained. - I certainly thought so. 😂🤣
Scusa, but YETTO was my boy's uncle and godfather.
As told to FS
My "Revised and Updated", yet 20 year old Webster's II New College Dictionary has: elk n., pl. elks or elk. I'm convinced. I used this book to "help" me do the Sunday NYT puzz years ago. It was the only day I did back then. It appeared in my local paper 1 week delayed. After zyzzyva(a tropical weevil, but you already know that), come six appendices: Abbreviations, Biographical names, Geographic names, Foreign Words and Phrases, Four-year Colleges and Universities, Two-year Public Colleges and Universities. There is also a Table of Measurements and a Periodic Table. As you can see, it was quite useful, though the number of entries was limited. So take that, Google!
5 bent Spoonerisms! Different. M&A feasts on different. And bent.
Did figure out that there theme mcguffin pretty early, and so the hippy-dippy spoons really helped with the solvequest.
OTOH, SPLINE/KRISHNA/ORRISROOT did NOTEDLY ravage some precious nanoseconds, as they did for lots of us solvequestidors, evidently.
YETTO was good for a har and a half.
staff weeject pick: RTS. Could also be short for RooTS. Sooo … ORTS could ergo be short for OrrisRooTS. And, and … that second bent SPOON from the top could actually be a SPOOOON, in disguise. Too bent? … yeah, kinda thought so.
Great comment earlier, about Yetto the Yeti. Gotta be a great idea for a new animated flicks character. Move over, Shrekmeister. [btw: Just bought a "steamin pile" of schlock flick DVDs, for bro-in-law's Xmas gifts -- and one of em had the title "The Man Who Killed Hitler and then the Big Foot". Starrin Sam Elliott, no less. Clearly, his call for help flick. Luv that Walmart 5-buck bin. But, I digress …]
Thanx for the spoonfest, Mr. Gilioli dude. And congratz on yer debut. Plus, primo Rubik's cube on steroids, in yer pic at xwordinfo,chen.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
**gruntz**
@OffTheGrid (12:31 PM) re: homeopathy
'Homeopathy' was part of a quote from WebMD related to ORRIS ROOT.
It's not my thing, but I certainly respect those for whom it's an important component of their well-being.
"Homeopathy is a medical system based on the belief that the body can cure itself. Those who practice it use tiny amounts of natural substances, like plants and minerals. They believe these stimulate the healing process.
It was developed in the late 1700s in Germany. It’s common in many European countries, but it’s not quite as popular in the United States." (WebMD
___
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
So easy and fast (for me) Hah - maybe that’s why I liked it so much. Clever clues.
❤️🤗👍🏽🤗❤️
Me too for STOPShort and iamb before INCH.
Oh ye of little faith.
I had never heard of spoon-bending before this puzzle. I was unaware of ORRISROOT and SPLINE, too, and tried to turn the latter into SPLINt (hi, @bocamp). I thought it was a meaning I didn’t know until it became clear that “Put into the pot” simply couldn’t support “T” as its penultimate letter. I like the look of the little bent spoons all over the grid. They remind me of those greeting cards which turn drawings of clowns or cats into letters.
I liked the puzzle, too. I had some nits that have already been picked, but they were minor. However, I feel a rant coming on that I guess is not really the puzzle’s fault. If no one else is going to yell around about DEBONE, I will. In my view, DEBONE is wholly redundant, there having existed a perfectly effective word which means exactly the same thing that had been around for 400 years by the time the upstart DEBONE was even a twinkle on anyone’s typewriter. That word is BONE. BONE, meaning to remove the BONEs from meat or fish, was coined in the sixteenth century. The first known use of DEBONE is 1944. DEBONE, admit your superfluity and take a hike. And, in only tenuously related news, this paragraph has reminded me of Sir Muirhead BONE, a Scot, who was a war artist in both WWI and WWII. (Strange name -- one wonders if he was teased as a child and called “Muir HeadBONE”.) He produced some vivid imagery of the hardware of war and its destructive power.
SB: 0s on Fri & Sat, but holding at -2 since then, including today. Yesterday, unusually, I didn’t know either of the words I missed.
Back with a wee brag --
SB td 0!
I spy a bent palindrome mixed in with the spoonerisms:
RAJA BRAG GRAB A JAR.
@Z
There is a tip of the cap to MEL OTT, O(h) yes.
DO OR STOP DEAD.
AN AL? ME AL? NA(h) SAL. We ET AL. I RON. WE ED said the conjoined twins attacched at the brain. Do YETTO and OTTO rhyme? Only if you accent the last syllable and pronounce it TOE said SHARP NEL to A(u)NT ED.
I was apprehensive about a Uri Geller reveal.
Did anyone notice the spent spoon in the SW had a different way of being bent that would have been a mirror image of another one. One set of mirror images anyway. Does shape and/or letters count is an issue on what constitutes mirror images.
@anon
Ii39am
Watch the Randi video. Intelligence and brilliance are not a defense against the con nor self-delusion. Faith certainly isn't.
Of no particular importance: I see in the Denver Post that 12/20 is Uri Geller's 75th birthday.
I dunno why my eye so determinedly misses that some squares are shaded or circled or whatever - but that's why I had no idea that there were bent SPOONS in this puzzle.
Coincidence of the day: my husband just asked me how to spell "camaraderie" - MW kindly obliged. Nothing to do with blog question.
My writeover today was because I automatically filled in "mists" instead of NASAL which then became obvious a bit later.
SB yd -3, today -1 five-letter.
@ Pablo 8:06
👋 for STOPShort, which messed me up for more than a few nanoseconds! Crossing NOTEDLY, very tricky, wanting NOTabLY but knowing AERATE is correct...finally saw that the S was 3rd person sing, duh.
OTOH never even saw SPLINE or ORRISROOT because the acrosses all popped right in.
@Barbara S. (4:55 PM) 👍 for all the 0's
Of the two words you Ngram'd, I also knew neither, but lucked out on the shorter one.
___
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
@BarbaraS 4:48
Have you ever seen the warning "Flammable!" on the back of a truck? The word for what they're warning you about is "inflammable", but evidently some sign maker decided that John Q. Public would think that meant "noninflammable" and be confused as to why a warning was needed.
Never mind that John Q. Public & family presumably have taken ibuprofen for inflammation... not flammation....
Unless they're the kind who take ivermectin...
BONE/DEBONE solution!! So @Barbara S. is technically correct, but your waiter may not have a clue as to what was going on with the English language in the 16th century. And you certainly wouldn't want to ask him to "BONE the fish" only to have him put the bone back in the fillet, would you? The solution: "Waiter, can you ask the chef to take the bone out for me, please."
@Barbara S and bocamp; like bocamp I missed that long one and lucked out on the shorter one, but then I also missed this word I'm sure I've missed before, so yd pg -2.
td 0.
Shell,
Are you saying Aquinas and Augustine were either conned or deluded, by self or anything or anyone else?
@Barbara S, @bocamp, & @okanaganer - I still don’t do the spelling bee but I recognize the shorter word from @Barbara S’s ngram. I’m surprised it’s legitimate for the spelling bee since I know it is an Arabic word. The number of parents I heard use it when chewing out their children for getting in trouble at school was significant. I did look it up and Merriam-Webster has a citation so apparently English has stolen it.
Surprised he rated this medium-challenging. I though it was easier than yesterday. Steady, easy solve.
@anon
I am saying great minds are not immune from being conned or self-deluded. I thought that was the essence of your statement. If it wasn't what was your statement about?
@okanager
td 0
Me too.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Shell,
Not at all. I’m saying Aquinas and Augustine are correct when they aver the truth of both the resurrection and the virgin birth.
Are you saying they are incorrect? And if so, is their error the result of stupidity, delusion or a con?
And if it’s a con, who’s doing the conning and to what end is the con ordered?
Shell,
One last question. If Aquinas and or Augustine were conned, who was it that conned them? And toward what end?
@anon
My beliefs are different than their beliefs. So to me they are mistaken. They may be wrong without being conned or deluded. If you want to think they are never wrong I'd say you are naive and gullible. If you want to argue their philosophies here you are desperate and foolish. I have read neither in 40 years. My attack was on your logic. I guess I would say the Virgin Birth is a delusion in that you believe without proof that is faith alone. It is away to live your life. You are welcome to it. It is unconvincing to me. Let me know how it works for you when you are dead. I do not share your faith. Why do you not accept this?
Now I know "NOM"
How and when do we donate to the blog?
Bravo to Guilherme on his debut. But I’d be a LYRE if I didn’t add that the puzzle badly needed some editing.
Not gonna waste much space on this one. Really scraping the bottom of the barrel, aren't we? Score? Fill in some crooked number or just put "other."
NOTEDLY BARED
Was it MEL B. WHO liked TO CROON
in BED with that BARITONE,
and MEANTIME turn to STOP their SPOON
TO KISS each INCH UPON DEBONE?
--- OTTO ROBINSON
To further dampen the solve the St. Paul Pioneer Press was missing clues for 14a OTTO and 25a WINTERSPORTS. I see the Mpls. fish wrap has them. Good thing it wasn't Fri or Sat.
The corners' spice is SALT. Speaking of Spice, MEL B or C, yeah baby.
@spacey is right, not a PAAR.
@Rec rocks - if you aren't kidding, the info about donations is up top under "Thanks For Your Support"
I'm sure others have mentioned that today we were SPOONfed. Not that I dislike spoons or anything.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
Many years ago, Uri Geller did his spoon bending on t.v., only with a huge difference. He announced he would bend a key held by the home viewer. I used a strong metal key no longer necessary around the house. His instructions were to concentrate, and applying no effort, lightly rub along the key with your index finger, which I did. The key forever after that, had a noticeable bend to it. Explain that.
Easy. You said it was an old key lying around, that you no longer used. It had a bend already in it, which you hadn't noticed.
Wrong. It was a newer key, and in perfect shape. It was no longer necessary with the new locks.
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