Relative difficulty: Easy (2:38 without really trying)
THEME: DOUBLE-A TEAM (63A: Tennessee Smokies or Portland Sea Dogs ... or what the answers to the starred clues comprise?) — all themers start with two "A"s:
Theme answers:
AA BATTERIES (17A: *TV remote inserts, often)
AA MEETING (21A: *Sobriety support group session, informally)
AARDVARK (30A: *Animal whose name means "earth pig" in Afrikaans)
A.A. MILNE (40A: *"Winnie-the-Pooh" writer)
A AVERAGE (47A: *4.0 on a transcript)
AARON PAUL (53A: *Three-time Emmy winner for "Breaking Bad")
Paul began his career with roles in several music videos, guest roles in television, and minor roles in films. In 2007, he had a recurring role as Scott Quittman on the HBO series Big Love (2006–2011). Following Breaking Bad, he starred in films such as Need for Speed(2014), Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014), Eye in the Sky (2015), and Central Intelligence (2016). He also voiced Todd Chavez in the Netflix animated series BoJack Horseman (2014–2020), on which he was also an executive producer, and portrayed Eddie Lane in the Hulu drama series The Path (2016–2018) and Caleb Nichols in the HBO science fiction drama series Westworld (2020). (wikipedia)
• • •
I guess this is a kind of vanity puzzle? Constructors initials ... or first two letters of his last name ... one of those, surely. Whatever, that's fine. Mine yourself for theme ideas, why not? The results aren't terribly inspiring, though, and something just doesn't quite sit right about the theme set. Those answers all do indeed start with "AA" so ... you can't argue with that. But there's a consistency issue for me. Sometimes the "AA" stand alone in the answer (AA MEETING), sometimes they're part of a larger word (AARDVARK). The answers aren't sufficiently different from one another somehow. I mean, you say "A.A." with both Milne and the meeting, which is unfortunate, because otherwise you'd have different pronunciations for every answer. And you actually call the batteries "Double-A batteries," which kind of takes the oomph out of your revealer, DOUBLE-A TEAM, since you've already mentally heard "Double-A" (even if you haven't seen it written out) before you hit the revealer. The set just feels rough, ragtag, not well curated. It feels like one of those puzzles where it's clear the theme isn't that scintillating so the constructor tries to compensate by just putting in a lot of it. A lot of theme. Seven total theme answers on a Monday is a Lot. But as I say, none of it is that exciting. It's just dense. I like AARON PAUL because it's original, and because I'm watching a lot of "BoJack Horseman" right now. But there's not much else that's very exciting. The only wordplay is in the revealer, and it's pretty tepid. The grid isn't built to showcase the fill: it's all short stuff except the themers and then the two long Downs, which are fine, but nothing to write home about. The grid is clean, but that's about as much as I can say about. No sparkle here today.
Not sure I'd use any form of ALE (e.g. ALE KEG) (27A: Pub barrel) if I already had IPA (or IPAS) in my grid (1D: Many hoppy brews, in brief), since IPA stands for India Pale ALE, and dupes like that should be avoided if at all possible. Are people going to complain? Well, I am, but people? Probably not. But you know it's inelegant. You know. So fix it. Other than that, there's not much to say bad or good about this puzzle. It's pretty straightforward, fairly plain. There are no challenging parts, no places to get stuck. Hardest thing was 1A: "Ain't that the truth!" ("I'LL SAY!") and that's just because it was the first thing I looked at and so I had nothing to go on and didn't get it at first glance. A few crosses later, I got it, and I never failed to get an answer at first glance again after that. I'm betting lots of people set personal speed records on this thing. I was about 10 seconds off my own record, and I am a *terrible* sprint-solver, mainly because my typing fingers are terribly clumsy. Every fifth keystroke or so seems to go awry, when I'm typing generally (like now) and when I'm solving. So finishing clean in 2:38 without actually trying to speed, that tells me this thing was spectacularly easy, even for a Monday. I enjoyed the clues on COY (11A: "You don't need to be ___, Roy" (rhyming Paul Simon lyric)) and SHEA (58A: Word with butter or Stadium), and enjoyed learning the etymology of AARDVARK. But on the whole, as a puzzle, this one didn't quite measure up.
I solved looking at only the down clues, and took 13 minutes, which made it a bit challenging. The only tough cross was 11 down mainly because it had 6 three letter answers which had multiple possibilities, but also because it drew a blank itself. CAPTIAL ONE is a banking giant? Really? I have seen it on TV commercials on the US channels we get, and it seemed to be a minor credit card. Who knew it is a banking giant! But I got it anyway.
Happy Boxing day from BC in western Canada where we are today entering an arctic deep freeze. A Facebook friend posted his max/min thermometer which currently shows a range of +47 C to -25 C (117 F to -13 F). Just a fond farewell gift from the year that keeps on giving, 2021. 6 months ago: record demolishing heat dome. 5 months ago: apocalyptic wildfires. 6 weeks ago: incredibly destructive torrential rains, wiping out all highway links between the coast and the inland.
I foolishly drove 100 km yesterday to my niece's house for xmas dinner. Last night it snowed about a foot overnight, and none of the roads in her rural neighborhood had been plowed by noon. Fortunately they live at the top of a hill, so coasted down...slowly, carefully, to the land of plowed roads, and somehow made it home safe in the blowing snow and bitter wind chill. Happy holidays!
Cut and dried Monday puzzle, easy peasy. One mark over AAH before AHH at 65D, easy fix.
Loved Winnie the Pooh when I was a wee bairn growing up in Scotland, my child minder even knit a Pooh stuffed animal for me. My favorite stuffie for years.
So much for less is more. All those themers and a quick solve = easy peasy theme-y squeezy. This was no lemon, though. Dead-on Mondee fun...dee.
RANDOS is one of those words that are like nails on a chalkboard to me. But, I can't put my finger on why that is because a made-up word snob I am not. Walk around the lawn perimeter, please.
The AL E KEG is the libation standard at any AL E cat frat party. Picturing Top Cat and his band of merry ne'er-do-well strays whooping it up with their garbage can band.
And that's all the excitement I can handle for today.
I am going to do a Double Z theme soon and you’re all going to love it.
This reminded me of the old days when a certain evil commenter would vent spleen over a certain constructor putting her initials in puzzles. Ah the good old days before moderators and when captchas weren’t pictures (and everyone had to do them). Simpler happier days with never any strife in the comments and always someone willing to solve all your problems by casting a spell.
What kind of AA MEETING has an ALE KEG of IPAS at it?
Well, this puzzle is clearly brought to you by the letter A. Not only are those double-A’s the stars of the theme answers, but long A’s also start five additional answers, and, as schwas, A’s also end 10 answers. The letter A gives Adam an A-plus.
The letter O also wants to say hello, especially the long O. In our “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” department we have OLIN, OVO, OGRE, LOBE, NERO, RANDOS, POGO, TIVO, and GASTRO.
There is great constructing craft going on here, with seven theme answers averaging just under 9 letters, including two abutting pairs, and yet a grid that’s clean as can be.
And, after our recent brush with the wombat, hello AARDVARK! Here are some interesting facts about them: 1. One of its closest relatives is the elephant. 2. They can eat 50,000 ants in a night, and their other favorite food is termites. 3. Their tongues are a foot long. 4. They can dig holes at the rate of 8 feet per minute.
What a bright entry into the week, Adam! Eight puzzles in to the NYT, you’re beginning to take on star power, in my book. I sit up straighter and smile when I see your name atop a puzzle. Thank you greatly for today’s!
Cute, dense theme - not much pushback even for early week. The different type of AA themers didn’t bother me. I think we’ve seen and discussed the redundancy of ALE KEG recently. Including LAURA and AURA was more of a side eye for me.
Chuckle from the “keister in Leicester” clue. SHEA was demolished over 10 years ago.
One day I express the hope for that long-awaited 6 letter Hidden Diagonal Word (HDW) and the very next day I get two of them!! Here are the clues:
1. Gauge
2. Is disrespectful
Very easy Monday. Came up short of a record, but filled it in with no sticking points. AARONPAUL crossing RANDOS not in my wheelhouse, but the crosses were all easy.
Kinda wanted bArby before LAURA for first lady Bush. lol
There is a diagonal string beginning at the 37D block and moving SE all the way to the SE corner that features 6 S's out of 9 letters--and provides the answers to both HDW clues:
1. ASSESS
2. SASSES
Of course, those two answers share a 5 letter HDW that might be clued, "Things to put in the seats."
Did not know AA MILNE, so that was nip, tuck and crosses. A touch weird to see SHEA clued in the contemporary. Can anyone suggest a fresh clue for ELSA ? Nice to see OGRE invited without body-shaming Shrek (yes, I know he’s a cartoon). Kind of an unusual clue for PHRASE - I probably could have written down one hundred definitions of the word without chucking up something like “It’s a hunk of a sentence”. - but ok, I guess it works.
I’m Switzerland in the great ALE KEG debate - people do say BEER KEG, so that would imply that there must be other types of KEGs as well (wine KEG?) and ALE seems as reasonable as anything I guess.
Agree that it was an easy puzzle. Would have been a personal record for me but it took a half minute to track down a typo. Oh well. I liked the theme better than @Rex did. Was reasonable, especially for a Monday where I expect less.
Bojack Horseman - loved the show. (No spoilers here) One of the best endings of all time, in that it ended in a very Bojack way. The show had lots of self-referential humor (the whole “Hollywoo” thread) and the humor was quite wry at times. The ending fit in so well. Wrapped up the show in a very satisfying way. Certainly not a show that would fit into the mainstream
Thx Adam; AAplus Mon. puz to start the week off with! :)
Med.
As I now do on Mons., tabbed thru all the across answers, then the downs. Zipped thru quickly, but didn't check the downs for possible errors before entering the last letter. Took way too long to find my gaff: had NODSat, instead of NODSTO. :(
Anyhoo, a fun romp. :)
@puzzlehoarder 👍 for 0 dbyd ___
yd 0
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
I'm fascinated with the word "meta." A meta puzzle is a puzzle about a puzzle. Metamathematics is mathematics about mathematics. But metaphysics doesn't seem to be physics about physics. It's more like beyond physics. The philosophy of reality beyond its physical properties.
I think that "Little criticism" for NIT is a little off. Nitpicking is criticism about a little thing. The nit is the little thing, not the criticism. I know that I'm violating Joaquin's Dictum but here's why. If we were to nitpick about nitpicking, we could call that metanitpicking.
I liked the puzzle. No crunch but lively fill.
Does Rex feel that he has to fill a certain amount of space? A lot of words about very little today.
I disagree with Rex...I thought the themers were sufficiently different from one another to make Rex happy (for once), AND, it was very easy, which makes it a perfect Monday puzzle for folks new to the nytxw.
Once again, depending on rex's always fickle mood, he loves or hates a puzzle. Mostly hates.
Shortly after starting this puzzle, I decided I did not like it. A lot. I think the many PPP entries turned me off. Or so it seems in retrospect.
I came across someone who used to say MSD Sheet instead of MSDS sheet. He and Mike Sharp may have gotten along, or at least agreed on one point.
Which reminds me (about yesterday's comments). I agree with Z that puzzle titles can be a bummer. Perhaps I might call some of them silly. But when they become meta-puzzles, I can enjoy them. But they become extremely annoying to me if they give the game away.
DOUBLE AA for the constructor's initials, I presume, as Rex mentions. Unlike Rex, I liked the mix of A.A. vs. A A vs. Aa. Fun little romp.
Good thing I never had to read the clue for 60D. "Down ____ (Maine)" for EAST would have held me up. I suppose I've heard it but not necessarily connected it to Maine.
My five favorite clues from last week (in order of appearance):
1. Lose the suit, say (6)(3) 2. Question that cannot be answered if its answer is "no" (3)(5) 3. Yule log? (4)(4) 4. Be behind bars? (4) 5. Entertainment with a private audience? (3)(4)
I first had the same reaction as @Rex -- needed more variation in the themers. But @teedmn convinces me otherwise; there's just about as much as you can get:
AA BATTERIES -- letters don't stand for anything. AA -- letters stand for Alcoholics Anonymous AARDVARK letters are part of a common noun A.A. MILNE -- letters have periods after them A AVERAGE -- letters are split across two words, quite a feat when they are the first two letters AARON PAUL --letters are part of a proper noun
I don't think you could find many other ways to vary it.
And while I never saw 65D, getting it from crosses, it had to be AHH or it would have been a poorly-placed theme answer.
@Southside, that's almost child abuse -- rush to your local library and check out Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner right away. Make sure they're illustrated by E.H. Shepard, not the Disney version. Aside from the enjoyment you will derive from reading them (no, you are not too old!) you will be able to understand future crossword clues for EEYORE.
@mathgent -- long ago in a book far away I had read that the word 'metaphysics' had originally referred to the treatises of Aristotle that, in the standard arrangement, followed his treatise on "physics." I just consulted Wikipedia, and learned that there is scholarly disagreement about this interpretation, with some interpreting the way I just said, and others more along the lines of what you suggested. Apparently the title was coined by librarians at the Alexandria Library, not by Aristotle himself.
NPR played an interview with Stephen Sondheim shortly after his death. Among many other things, he said that he would sometimes use a rhyme more than once (in different songs, of course), but that one could never repeat what he called a "trick rhyme." In the latter category, you could rhyme belladonna with "Well, I wanna." Feel free to use it!
The AARDVARK should have been in yesterday’s puzzle, vacuuming up all those ANTs, trying LICE for the first time and choking on a ROACH. Maybe the IGUANA, could have helped. They eat insects surely? (I actually ate IGUANA when I lived in Nicaragua. Have not tried AARDVARK.)
Thanks for the AARDVARK facts, @Lewis. BTW, as a fellow connoisseur of clever cluing, I love your Monday top five lists - do you keep these after your posts? I would love to see a post of the top 50 from the year next week.
Easy for me too, except that I mistyped DOUBLAATEAM for the revealer, just auto-inserting the two As without thinking. Took me a while to find the mistake.
"A truly immersive Halloween experience for the rest of us" -- AARON PAUL (a/k/a Todd Chavez in BoJack Horseman, pitching his idea for a Halloween-themed store open only in January).
At this very moment, our RENTAL car, a white Ford Escape, is parked behind our RENTAL townhouse in Stillwater, Oklahoma, across the street from the stadium where Oklahoma State play their football games. The beautiful campus is mostly empty for the Holidays.
We'll head over to my mother-in-law's house in a little while for a post-Boxing-Day barbecue. Someone besides me will do all of the work. I'll find a chair in liminal space, read a book, field the occasional question, throw in a quip or ASIDE when appropriate. Everybody wins.
@Okanager (12:41) -- Glad you're still here to tell the tale. "Why-am-I-here" snow driving makes no sense, yet there we are all too often. We'll return to Minnesota mid-week to a gentler sub-zero descendant of your storm. We call them "Alberta clippers" -- now I can see why.
@Mathgent (8:46) re "Metanitonomy" -- "Little nits have littler nits, on their backs to bite 'em. And littler nits still littler bugs, and so ad infinitum. So to with puzzles and physics, I think.
A fine array of AAs teaming up in 6 different ways. It took me a bit to appreciate the variety - after the first two stand-alone AAs, I was bothered by the single-word AARDVARK; only after finishing did I see the constructor's creativity in discovering so many AA possibilities. Speaking of AARDVARKS, it occurred to me that there was an opportunity a DOUBLE DOUBLE with a "first in line in the yellow pages" clue for AA AARDVARK which in our community is a towing outfit but, I see in the Web, in others is a construction firm or a bail bond business.
Favorite cross: IGUANA + TUSSLE. No idea: AARON PAUL.
This is smooth, pleasant and well-made -- and I aadmire the density of the theme. That said, I find I have pretty much nothing to say about this puzzle. Which sometimes happens when it's a slam-dunk solving experience and my brain has not gotten sufficiently warmed up.
"finishing clean in 2:38 without actually trying to speed"
We get it, Rex. We get it.
I thought this was a decent Monday and a welcome change from yesterdays' debacle. And @mathgent, had the same train of thought upon coming across "meta".
And @frantic... No. Never mind. I'm starting one of my New Years Resolutions early.
@Nelly, in American baseball there’s the major league and three levels of minor leagues — A, AA, and AAA. The two teams mentioned in the clue are AA (double A) teams.
This puzzle gets an AA for being a pleasant breezy Monday solve. (I still have a headache from yesterday’s insect exterminations.) Liked the choice of themers, especially AA MILNE and AARON PAUL, two PEOPLE who will probably never again end up in the same sentence.
One of my early pandemic activities was to binge watch “Breaking Bad” which I had never seen. Paul was brilliant in it and one of the main reasons it became such an addictive experience. “What good is being an outlaw when you have responsibilities?”
Since my doctor asks me to say AAH, I ended up with PARASE as a section of a sentence. That was one of the two moments during the solve when I felt briefly stumped. The other was coming up with six letters for “Ain’t that the truth.”
Strangest looking entry: NODSTO which could be the name of a sidekick in an old John Wayne western. “Saddle up the horses, Nodsto. We need to git outta this town ‘fore thar’s another TUSSLE.”
@Frantic, you are not alone in your response to the word RANDO.
@Trey & @kitshef. Your AAH/AHH quibble is a very wee nit at best. There is fluidity between the two in xwords, no matter the clue. As someone else noted "AAH" would have been a theme faux pas.
I guess this is kind of a vanity blog, what with hyping the New Yorker article which mentions you, and any of the endless other allusions, citations and references to you or the blog. My only questioin Rex is who hurt you?
@Teedmn (11:02) -- When we drove past the pharmacy on the way into town, we talked about stopping to pick up the prescriptions that've been sent to the wrong Stillwater Walgreens over the years. More than a couple.
Cotchford Farm is where A.A. Milne wrote the Winnie the Pooh books and where Brain Jones ( Yep, THAT Brian Jones) died by misadventure.
Speaking of farms, who's gonna tell R. Duke that in addition to A, AA and AAA, thetes's also rookie ball, instructional league, not to mention independentdent leagues?
More imporatnt, who's gonna tell Rex that his schtick is wearisome?
So many A's. Batteries, Meeting, Average, Rdvark, and Ron Paul. I'll Say no more there.
Sweet little Monday. The rum from the eggnog has worn off but I think the shock to my cholesterol count from the quart of cream has affected my brain. Went through and filled this in and then spent 10 minutes hunting down a typo. Like I needed a challenge.
@Frantic, One of the millennials said, "Some Rando guy" last night. It's their thing. This too shall pass.
Just right for a Monday, and the variety of the AA's didn't bother me. I wish Hank Aaron had been included, as he was my favorite player when I first got interested in baseball, but there was at least AARON(pablo)Paul, so good enough.
If you're into Boxing Day I hope you saw Foxtrot in yesterday's Sunday Funnies. A proper celebration indeed.
No time to do yesterday's puzz until this morning, due to singing and entertaining commitments. I'm with the group that printed it and had no italics for guidance, so when my solve took me to the bottom pretty early in the game, the "clues in italics" was a WTF, but then like some others I had fun finding the hidden bugs and deciphering answers and had already written in.
Nice one, AA, and easy enough to forgive the vanity involved. I thought it was Above Average for a Monday, and thanks for the fun.
@Birchbark: Stillwater OK has been a frequent stop for us, over the years -- we've got some very good friends there. Remember goin to a place called Eskimo Joe's there, on occasion. Our friends even bought m&e a T-shirt from EJ's, in fact. Real nice little town.
Cool vaariety of AA themers in this MonPuz. If only AHH coulda been AAH …
staff weeject pick: AVA. Has yer two A's, but kinda spread out. Primo weeject stacks in the NE & SW, btw.
fave fillins included: RANDOS (admirably rogue-ish). IGUANA/TUSSLE. EXGOVERNOR [Texas could use another one of those]. fave Ow de Speration: ALLS.
Re: Revealer clue: Misuse of the word 'comprise', which means contains. Therefore, "The Double A team comprises Aaron Paul, aardvark, etc. " THE PARTS DO NOT COMPRISE THE WHOLE, rather, THE WHOLE COMPRISES THE PARTS.
Aarrgh......or should I choose curtain A and go for AAH? Being somewhat adamantine when I feel like being that way...and because I am, why couldn't AA RONSON find a clue for AAsvogel? I mean who doesn't love to profit from the suffering of others....I'll have to travel to Florida and ask a certain ex-president. I'm going to go join @Nancy and do a slam-dunk fandango tango. Maybe @chefwen and I could also have a little wee bairn discussion over my favorite Winnie the Poo. Why not add @Frantic since the only excitement that she can handle today is AL E KEG with a side of an AL E cat frat party. We'll need some lemon and talk about the theme-y-squeezy thing. Not a bad - if a tad ho hum - puzzle.....
I'LL SAY I'm with Nelly @8:13. I did a DOUBLE take when I came to the reveal, DOUBLE-A TEAMs. The clue to the reveal says unequivocally that the theme entries (not just their first two letters) are "teams", to wit, "...or what the answers to the starred clues comprise? How can that not be interpreted to mean that the theme answers, AA BATTERIES and others, comprise (consist of, be made up of) TEAMs? "Go AARDVARKs! Beat the AAMEETINGs!!"
This infelicity could have been avoided by a reveal along the lines of "Tennessee Smokies or Portland Seadogs or what part of the answers to the starred clues hint at."
Some will say that's overthinking. I say that not doing so is poor thinking, a failure to think things through carefully and thoroughly. Yeah, and one person's nit is another person' nuanced, insightful analysis. So there, have some of that!
Looks like there also are a few SINGLE A TEAMs scattered about.
While I'm here, how are "Total strangers" (48D) R AND O'S? Renegades AND Outliers? Refugees AND Outcasts? Got to think about that some more.
@mathgent - I agree with your NIT observation but I think the clue is fine if understood differently. A noun before "criticism" means "a criticism of the noun." For example, "My football criticism is that there is more time watching commercials than the sport during the game." The misdirection in "Little criticism" is that "little" is usually an adjective but here is standing in for the noun phrase "something little." I took the clue to mean "a criticism about something little" and not "a criticism that is little." This sort of "adjective standing in for a noun phrase" is more of a late week thing, but it is a ploy cluers use.
@Comprise - you omitted a quote mark in your html. Anyway, The usage note is more interesting, anyway. I especially like Why it has been singled out is not clear because @LMS has explained eloquently exactly why in the past.
TEAM - The revealer is calling the TEAM of A's in the answers a TEAM the same way we call a pair of oxen yoked together a TEAM. That is why it is only the "yoked together" DOUBLE A's that are TEAMs.
@Anoa Bob - RANDO is slang for "RANDOm person" and suggests a certain amount of intrusion happening. "We were having a great time at the bar when some RANDO started hitting on me."
You could also look at this as "nit" is short for (or "little") nit-picking. For example, someone may say "I only have one nit about this puzzle...", in which nit is a little criticism, rather than using the whole phrase.
While I cannot promise this is the case, I am fairly sure that I have seen something said to this effect in this blog in the past.
@Nellie + @Anoa Bob. I think you need to read both the dictionary and the clue a little better.
com·prise /kəmˈprīz/
verb verb: comprise; 3rd person present: comprises; past tense: comprised; past participle: comprised; gerund or present participle: comprising consist of; be made up of. "the country comprises twenty states" Similar: consist of be made up of be composed of contain take in embrace encompass incorporate include involve cover comprehend make up; constitute. "this single breed comprises 50 percent of the Swiss cattle population" Similar
The answers to the starred clues constitute (for purposes of this puzzle), the AA Team (or “Double A Team). The starred answers are a group (a team, if you will) of AA things.
@eggs, the dictionary is my favorite book. I have two well-worn hard copies close at hand. I think your saying TEAM works "for the purposes of this puzzle" is is a tacit admission that it doesn't work "for the purposes of standard English language usage". How do BATTERIES, MEETING, AARDVARK, MILNE, AVERAGE and PAUL comprise a TEAM in any ordinary sense of the word? If that group is a TEAM then any bunch of arbitrary, disconnected words is a TEAM.
@Southside... Can anyone suggest a fresh clue for ELSA
actually, I never heard of the clue. no squirts around the house I guess. so it's quite fresh/raw to me.
1 - Lancaster Bride of Frankenstein, Miss Plimsol (to her real husband) 2 - that lion 3 - the Italian actress Martinelli 4 - Mrs. Einstein
(disclaimer: I had the first three from my lower brain stem memory, but got the last by typing 'elsa' into the wiki search, but I knew that last one, too; just not easily retrieved)
@Joe Welling: I didn't know there was an Anarchists Anonymous. If there isn't there should be, and he'd be Czar.
@various: does it not seem that OFL complains when clues/answers either don't line up and when they do?
Funday Monday or, nod to @Franyic, fun-dee Mon-dee. However you phrase ot, this hit all the appropriate week beginning notes. Felt as if @Rex just could not get his cranky pants off after some serious rantings (not, in my humble opinion entirely misplaced) last week. I found the theme just fine, couldn’t possibly care less if we are talking batteries, initials or animals with long schnozzolas.
I possibly gave some love just because of a reference to AA Baseball, only about six weeks to spring training after all! We haven’t seen Mr. Milne in a long while; welcome back. Plenty to im i e with IPAS and an entire ALE KEG. Possibly warming up for the NYE party? I know I am. My niece gets married this evening in Chicago via Zoom and will return home (no way to do a real honeymoon in a pandemic!) to a very small gathering at my house for games and fun to welcome in a hopefully better year.
@Anon - omg, I’m 0 for 3 walking up to the plate for what is probably my last at bat, and I don’t know if I would get the fourth clue for ELSA (I did know that, just not sure if I could retrieve it from the dark recesses (LOBES ?) of my brain.
Nit to pick: PHRASE (69A) is not the best answer for clue, "Section of a sentence." That would be CLAUSE, A phrase may be part of sentence, or not, or even a whole sentence itself.
Elsa Benítez (born 1977), Mexican model Elsa Borg (1826-1909), Swedish social worker Elsa Brändström (1888–1948), Swedish philanthropist Elsa Beata Bunge (1734–1819), Swedish botanist Elsa Patricia Galarza Contreras (born 1963), Peruvian economist Elsa Ehrich (1914–1948), German Nazi SS concentration camp guard executed for war crimes Elsa Einstein (1876–1936), German, Albert Einstein's second wife Elsa Eschelsson (1861–1911), first Swedish woman doctor in law Elsa Fougt (1744–1826), Swedish publisher Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (1874–1927), German artist/poet Duchess Elsa of Württemberg (1876–1936) Elsa Gye (1881–1943), suffragette Elsa Hosk (born 1988), Swedish model Elsa Kazi (1884–1967), German writer and German origin Sindhi woman. famous for her poem The Neem Tree (Sindhi: نم جو وڻ). Elsa Klensch (born 1933), Australian-American Fashion Commentator Elsa Lanchester (1902–1986), English-American actress, probably best known for playing the Bride of Frankenstein Elsa Leviseur (born 1932), South African-born American architect. Elsa Lindberg-Dovlette (1874–1944), Swedish writer and princess of Persia Elsa Lunghini (born 1973), French singer Elsa Martinelli (born 1932 or 1935), Italian actress and former fashion model Elsa Maxwell (1883–1963), American gossip columnist and author, songwriter, and professional hostess Elsa Morante (1912–1985), Italian novelist Elsa Pataky (born 1976), Spanish actress, model, and film producer Elsa Peretti (1940–2021), Italian jewelry designer Elsa Ratassepp (1893-1972), Estonian actress Elsa Raven (1929–2020), American actress Elsa Salazar Cade (born 1952), American entomologist/educator Elsa Schiaparelli (1890–1973), Italian fashion designer of the 1920s and 1930s Elsa Maria Sylvestersson (1924–1996), Finnish ballet dancer and choreographer Elsa Triolet (1896–1970), French writer Elsa Zylberstein (born 1968), French actress
Fictional characters
Elsa (Frozen), from Disney's animated film Frozen Elsa (Once Upon a Time), from the ABC television series Once Upon a Time Elsa (Symphogear), a character in the anime series Symphogear Elsa of Brabant, heroine of the Wagnerian opera Lohengrin Baroness Elsa von Schraeder, from the film and stage show The Sound of Music Elsa Schneider, from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Elsa Cleeg, of Kim Possible Elsa Carrington, character from Secret Agent Elsa Frankenstein, character from Son of Frankenstein Elsa Frankenstein, character from The Ghost of Frankenstein and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man Elsa Granhiert, character from Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World Elsa de Sica, from the manga/anime Gunslinger Girl Elsa La Conti, from the video game series Arcana Heart Elsa Lichtmann, from the L.A. Noire Elsa Shivers from I Know What You Did Last Summer Elsa Mars, of American Horror Story: Freak Show, portrayed by Jessica Lange Elsa Tilsley, in the British soap opera Coronation Street Exelsa, formerly Elsa, from the sitcom La familia P. Luche Elsa, from Power Rangers Dino Thunder Elsa, from Jojo Rabbit Elsa Gardner, from Atypical Elsa, from The Fundamentals of Caring Elsa, one of the main characters in Armour of God II: Operation Condor
Other
Elsa the Lioness, subject of the book and film Born Free Hurricane Elsa, a Category 1 Atlantic hurricane in 2021
Good to see my AVAtar is meaningful again! Or maybe it's AAVAtar...
Easy puzz, <2 Rexes (see? he posted a time again), not much else to say.
Did not get to yesterpuzz. Was busy doing all the New Yorker stuff in the 12/27 issue (came last week). But, as someone commented recently, it's less fun when you don't have this place to share about it afterwards.
Our son is recovering well from little o, and his gf has only a mild case, so that was the best Christmas present!
You can't turn your back on the day's comments for a single second -- lest something crop up that you don't have (or remember) the origin story for. I'm darned if I can find an ELSA, any ELSA at all in the grid. So why are 1,063 different ELSAs being cited in the 5:00 comment?
Of the cited ELSAs, I would accept in my puzzle only the following ELSAs-- and I'd squawk loudly about any additional ones.
Acceptable ELSAs:
Lanchester Maxwell Peretti Schiaparelli the "Frozen" Elsa Elsa the Lioness
That's it, everyone. No other ELSAs. Fair warning. Otherwise a big squawk.
I'm still waiting for a video of someone, anyone, solving the puzzle in 2:38. I physically can't type all the letters in that amount of time, let alone read the clues and process them. Not saying it isn't possible, but working as fast as I can on an easy Monday with no snags I can only muster a low 7ish time.
@JC66 - Touche! Absolutely amazing. I am challenged by my hunt-and-peck typing method and my solving process of working across, then down, then fill in the rest (which apparently is not the speedy approach). Now that I have seen it, I will never doubt it again. Thanks.
They are minor league baseball teams that are two levels below the major leagues. AAA teams feed players to the majors, while AA teams feed them to AAA.
I too was struck by the inconsistency of this Monday conceit. Initials and parts of names and...at least we know the answer to "Why do it?" Must be nice to have a life where you're always the first called on when taking attendance.
Even the long downs were meh. It's a Garfield-ish Monday. Bogey.
Oh, DOD? You know it has to be Sissy: she has SPACE in her name!
A long time ago, I was solving this puzzle and got stuck at an unguessable (to me) crossing: N. C. WYETH crossing NATICK at the "N"—I knew WYETH but forgot his initials, and NATICK ... is a suburb of Boston that I had no hope of knowing. It was clued as someplace the Boston Marathon runs through (???). Anyway, NATICK— the more obscure name in that crossing—became shorthand for an unguessable cross, esp. where the cross involves two proper nouns, neither of which is exceedingly well known. NATICK took hold as crossword slang, and the term can now be both noun ("I had a NATICK in the SW corner...") or verb ("I got NATICKED by 50A / 34D!")
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89 comments:
I solved looking at only the down clues, and took 13 minutes, which made it a bit challenging. The only tough cross was 11 down mainly because it had 6 three letter answers which had multiple possibilities, but also because it drew a blank itself. CAPTIAL ONE is a banking giant? Really? I have seen it on TV commercials on the US channels we get, and it seemed to be a minor credit card. Who knew it is a banking giant! But I got it anyway.
Happy Boxing day from BC in western Canada where we are today entering an arctic deep freeze. A Facebook friend posted his max/min thermometer which currently shows a range of +47 C to -25 C (117 F to -13 F). Just a fond farewell gift from the year that keeps on giving, 2021. 6 months ago: record demolishing heat dome. 5 months ago: apocalyptic wildfires. 6 weeks ago: incredibly destructive torrential rains, wiping out all highway links between the coast and the inland.
I foolishly drove 100 km yesterday to my niece's house for xmas dinner. Last night it snowed about a foot overnight, and none of the roads in her rural neighborhood had been plowed by noon. Fortunately they live at the top of a hill, so coasted down...slowly, carefully, to the land of plowed roads, and somehow made it home safe in the blowing snow and bitter wind chill. Happy holidays!
Many people believe that Alan Alda actually created the Pooh Bear under the pseudonym "A.A. Milne". This is inaccurate. Alan Alda created bears.
Cut and dried Monday puzzle, easy peasy. One mark over AAH before AHH at 65D, easy fix.
Loved Winnie the Pooh when I was a wee bairn growing up in Scotland, my child minder even knit a Pooh stuffed animal for me. My favorite stuffie for years.
ALE KEG just sounds all kind of wrong.
So much for less is more. All those themers and a quick solve = easy peasy theme-y squeezy.
This was no lemon, though. Dead-on Mondee fun...dee.
RANDOS is one of those words that are like nails on a chalkboard to me. But, I can't put my finger on why that is because a made-up word snob I am not. Walk around the lawn perimeter, please.
The AL E KEG is the libation standard at any AL E cat frat party. Picturing Top Cat and his band of merry ne'er-do-well strays whooping it up with their garbage can band.
And that's all the excitement I can handle for today.
.5🧠
🎉🎉.5
Easy. @Rex is right about speed, I had no real problems with this one. Cute riff on the instructor’s initials and last name. Liked it.
I think that when you've created a Monday-easy "clean" [@Rex's word] grid with seven themers, you've accomplished something. Nice going, Adam!!
I am going to do a Double Z theme soon and you’re all going to love it.
This reminded me of the old days when a certain evil commenter would vent spleen over a certain constructor putting her initials in puzzles. Ah the good old days before moderators and when captchas weren’t pictures (and everyone had to do them). Simpler happier days with never any strife in the comments and always someone willing to solve all your problems by casting a spell.
What kind of AA MEETING has an ALE KEG of IPAS at it?
Hey - flockers from yesterday- sometimes we use two terms for the same thing. I always love lists of names for animal groups.
@PhysGraf. Are you high?
Well, this puzzle is clearly brought to you by the letter A. Not only are those double-A’s the stars of the theme answers, but long A’s also start five additional answers, and, as schwas, A’s also end 10 answers. The letter A gives Adam an A-plus.
The letter O also wants to say hello, especially the long O. In our “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” department we have OLIN, OVO, OGRE, LOBE, NERO, RANDOS, POGO, TIVO, and GASTRO.
There is great constructing craft going on here, with seven theme answers averaging just under 9 letters, including two abutting pairs, and yet a grid that’s clean as can be.
And, after our recent brush with the wombat, hello AARDVARK! Here are some interesting facts about them:
1. One of its closest relatives is the elephant.
2. They can eat 50,000 ants in a night, and their other favorite food is termites.
3. Their tongues are a foot long.
4. They can dig holes at the rate of 8 feet per minute.
What a bright entry into the week, Adam! Eight puzzles in to the NYT, you’re beginning to take on star power, in my book. I sit up straighter and smile when I see your name atop a puzzle. Thank you greatly for today’s!
Cute, dense theme - not much pushback even for early week. The different type of AA themers didn’t bother me. I think we’ve seen and discussed the redundancy of ALE KEG recently. Including LAURA and AURA was more of a side eye for me.
Chuckle from the “keister in Leicester” clue. SHEA was demolished over 10 years ago.
Enjoyable Monday solve.
Lord, that was easy. “Implement with ink”, for gosh sakes?
The only thing that gave any trouble was Will continuing to clue non-words incorrectly. At the doctor, you say AAH. At the spa, you say AHH.
For the first time ever, got AVA without having to wait on crosses. An old dog can learn new tricks!
@Z – check out the June 18, 1994 puzzle, for a real ZZ-fest.
One day I express the hope for that long-awaited 6 letter Hidden Diagonal Word (HDW) and the very next day I get two of them!! Here are the clues:
1. Gauge
2. Is disrespectful
Very easy Monday. Came up short of a record, but filled it in with no sticking points. AARONPAUL crossing RANDOS not in my wheelhouse, but the crosses were all easy.
Kinda wanted bArby before LAURA for first lady Bush. lol
There is a diagonal string beginning at the 37D block and moving SE all the way to the SE corner that features 6 S's out of 9 letters--and provides the answers to both HDW clues:
1. ASSESS
2. SASSES
Of course, those two answers share a 5 letter HDW that might be clued, "Things to put in the seats."
Nice Monday — I give it an AA.
I don’t get how these are teams. Maybe I am overthinking and looking too literally. Just curious for others insights. Thanks!
Did not know AA MILNE, so that was nip, tuck and crosses. A touch weird to see SHEA clued in the contemporary. Can anyone suggest a fresh clue for ELSA ? Nice to see OGRE invited without body-shaming Shrek (yes, I know he’s a cartoon). Kind of an unusual clue for PHRASE - I probably could have written down one hundred definitions of the word without chucking up something like “It’s a hunk of a sentence”. - but ok, I guess it works.
I’m Switzerland in the great ALE KEG debate - people do say BEER KEG, so that would imply that there must be other types of KEGs as well (wine KEG?) and ALE seems as reasonable as anything I guess.
Who knew RON PAUL was a member of AA?
;)
Agree that it was an easy puzzle. Would have been a personal record for me but it took a half minute to track down a typo. Oh well. I liked the theme better than @Rex did. Was reasonable, especially for a Monday where I expect less.
Bojack Horseman - loved the show. (No spoilers here) One of the best endings of all time, in that it ended in a very Bojack way. The show had lots of self-referential humor (the whole “Hollywoo” thread) and the humor was quite wry at times. The ending fit in so well. Wrapped up the show in a very satisfying way. Certainly not a show that would fit into the mainstream
Thx Adam; AAplus Mon. puz to start the week off with! :)
Med.
As I now do on Mons., tabbed thru all the across answers, then the downs. Zipped thru quickly, but didn't check the downs for possible errors before entering the last letter. Took way too long to find my gaff: had NODSat, instead of NODSTO. :(
Anyhoo, a fun romp. :)
@puzzlehoarder 👍 for 0 dbyd
___
yd 0
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
@kitchef 7:15 - I am opposite you on the AHH/AAH thing - doctor is AHH and spa is AAH to me
18D: "Don't starve yourself!" : EAT
How nice: anorexia, world hunger mockery
I'm fascinated with the word "meta." A meta puzzle is a puzzle about a puzzle. Metamathematics is mathematics about mathematics. But metaphysics doesn't seem to be physics about physics. It's more like beyond physics. The philosophy of reality beyond its physical properties.
I think that "Little criticism" for NIT is a little off. Nitpicking is criticism about a little thing. The nit is the little thing, not the criticism. I know that I'm violating Joaquin's Dictum but here's why. If we were to nitpick about nitpicking, we could call that metanitpicking.
I liked the puzzle. No crunch but lively fill.
Does Rex feel that he has to fill a certain amount of space? A lot of words about very little today.
I disagree with Rex...I thought the themers were sufficiently different from one another to make Rex happy (for once), AND, it was very easy, which makes it a perfect Monday puzzle for folks new to the nytxw.
Once again, depending on rex's always fickle mood, he loves or hates a puzzle. Mostly hates.
Shortly after starting this puzzle, I decided I did not like it. A lot. I think the many PPP entries turned me off. Or so it seems in retrospect.
I came across someone who used to say MSD Sheet instead of MSDS sheet. He and Mike Sharp may have gotten along, or at least agreed on one point.
Which reminds me (about yesterday's comments). I agree with Z that puzzle titles can be a bummer. Perhaps I might call some of them silly. But when they become meta-puzzles, I can enjoy them. But they become extremely annoying to me if they give the game away.
What @mmorgan wrote. Partial to As and baseball. All's well for a Monday.
DOUBLE AA for the constructor's initials, I presume, as Rex mentions. Unlike Rex, I liked the mix of A.A. vs. A A vs. Aa. Fun little romp.
Good thing I never had to read the clue for 60D. "Down ____ (Maine)" for EAST would have held me up. I suppose I've heard it but not necessarily connected it to Maine.
Thanks Adam Aaronson, nice Monday puzzle!
@mathgent -- Great post!
My five favorite clues from last week
(in order of appearance):
1. Lose the suit, say (6)(3)
2. Question that cannot be answered if its answer is "no" (3)(5)
3. Yule log? (4)(4)
4. Be behind bars? (4)
5. Entertainment with a private audience? (3)(4)
SKINNY DIP
YOU AWAKE
NICE LIST
TEND
USO TOUR
I first had the same reaction as @Rex -- needed more variation in the themers. But @teedmn convinces me otherwise; there's just about as much as you can get:
AA BATTERIES -- letters don't stand for anything.
AA -- letters stand for Alcoholics Anonymous
AARDVARK letters are part of a common noun
A.A. MILNE -- letters have periods after them
A AVERAGE -- letters are split across two words, quite a feat when they are the first two letters
AARON PAUL --letters are part of a proper noun
I don't think you could find many other ways to vary it.
And while I never saw 65D, getting it from crosses, it had to be AHH or it would have been a poorly-placed theme answer.
@Southside, that's almost child abuse -- rush to your local library and check out Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner right away. Make sure they're illustrated by E.H. Shepard, not the Disney version. Aside from the enjoyment you will derive from reading them (no, you are not too old!) you will be able to understand future crossword clues for EEYORE.
@mathgent -- long ago in a book far away I had read that the word 'metaphysics' had originally referred to the treatises of Aristotle that, in the standard arrangement, followed his treatise on "physics." I just consulted Wikipedia, and learned that there is scholarly disagreement about this interpretation, with some interpreting the way I just said, and others more along the lines of what you suggested. Apparently the title was coined by librarians at the Alexandria Library, not by Aristotle himself.
I do agree with Rex about the IPA/ALE thing.
@Nancy from yesterday --
NPR played an interview with Stephen Sondheim shortly after his death. Among many other things, he said that he would sometimes use a rhyme more than once (in different songs, of course), but that one could never repeat what he called a "trick rhyme." In the latter category, you could rhyme belladonna with "Well, I wanna." Feel free to use it!
By 'yesterday' I meant Saturday.
The AARDVARK should have been in yesterday’s puzzle, vacuuming up all those ANTs, trying LICE for the first time and choking on a ROACH. Maybe the IGUANA, could have helped. They eat insects surely? (I actually ate IGUANA when I lived in Nicaragua. Have not tried AARDVARK.)
Thanks for the AARDVARK facts, @Lewis. BTW, as a fellow connoisseur of clever cluing, I love your Monday top five lists - do you keep these after your posts? I would love to see a post of the top 50 from the year next week.
Easy for me too, except that I mistyped DOUBLAATEAM for the revealer, just auto-inserting the two As without thinking. Took me a while to find the mistake.
"A truly immersive Halloween experience for the rest of us" -- AARON PAUL (a/k/a Todd Chavez in BoJack Horseman, pitching his idea for a Halloween-themed store open only in January).
At this very moment, our RENTAL car, a white Ford Escape, is parked behind our RENTAL townhouse in Stillwater, Oklahoma, across the street from the stadium where Oklahoma State play their football games. The beautiful campus is mostly empty for the Holidays.
We'll head over to my mother-in-law's house in a little while for a post-Boxing-Day barbecue. Someone besides me will do all of the work. I'll find a chair in liminal space, read a book, field the occasional question, throw in a quip or ASIDE when appropriate. Everybody wins.
@Okanager (12:41) -- Glad you're still here to tell the tale. "Why-am-I-here" snow driving makes no sense, yet there we are all too often. We'll return to Minnesota mid-week to a gentler sub-zero descendant of your storm. We call them "Alberta clippers" -- now I can see why.
@Mathgent (8:46) re "Metanitonomy" -- "Little nits have littler nits, on their backs to bite 'em. And littler nits still littler bugs, and so ad infinitum. So to with puzzles and physics, I think.
A fine array of AAs teaming up in 6 different ways. It took me a bit to appreciate the variety - after the first two stand-alone AAs, I was bothered by the single-word AARDVARK; only after finishing did I see the constructor's creativity in discovering so many AA possibilities. Speaking of AARDVARKS, it occurred to me that there was an opportunity a DOUBLE DOUBLE with a "first in line in the yellow pages" clue for AA AARDVARK which in our community is a towing outfit but, I see in the Web, in others is a construction firm or a bail bond business.
Favorite cross: IGUANA + TUSSLE. No idea: AARON PAUL.
This is smooth, pleasant and well-made -- and I aadmire the density of the theme. That said, I find I have pretty much nothing to say about this puzzle. Which sometimes happens when it's a slam-dunk solving experience and my brain has not gotten sufficiently warmed up.
Today we get "humble" Rex :
"I am a terrible sprint solver."
Although :
"2:38 without really trying"
"about 10 seconds off my own record"
"finishing clean in 2:38 without actually trying to speed"
We get it, Rex. We get it.
I thought this was a decent Monday and a welcome change from yesterdays' debacle. And @mathgent, had the same train of thought upon coming across "meta".
And @frantic... No. Never mind. I'm starting one of my New Years Resolutions early.
@Nelly, in American baseball there’s the major league and three levels of minor leagues — A, AA, and AAA. The two teams mentioned in the clue are AA (double A) teams.
This puzzle gets an AA for being a pleasant breezy Monday solve. (I still have a headache from yesterday’s insect exterminations.)
Liked the choice of themers, especially AA MILNE and AARON PAUL, two PEOPLE who will probably never again end up in the same sentence.
One of my early pandemic activities was to binge watch “Breaking Bad” which I had never seen. Paul was brilliant in it and one of the main reasons it became such an addictive experience. “What good is being an outlaw when you have responsibilities?”
Since my doctor asks me to say AAH, I ended up with PARASE as a section of a sentence. That was one of the two moments during the solve when I felt briefly stumped. The other was coming up with six letters for “Ain’t that the truth.”
Strangest looking entry: NODSTO which could be the name of a sidekick in an old John Wayne western. “Saddle up the horses, Nodsto. We need to git outta this town ‘fore thar’s another TUSSLE.”
@Frantic, you are not alone in your response to the word RANDO.
@Birchbark, couldn't you have just driven 11 miles south to Stillwater? :-)
@mathgent, thumbs up on the metanitpicking comment!
@Trey & @kitshef. Your AAH/AHH quibble is a very wee nit at best. There is fluidity between the two in xwords, no matter the clue. As someone else noted "AAH" would have been a theme faux pas.
I guess this is kind of a vanity blog, what with hyping the New Yorker article which mentions you, and any of the endless other allusions, citations and references to you or the blog. My only questioin Rex is who hurt you?
@Teedmn (11:02) -- When we drove past the pharmacy on the way into town, we talked about stopping to pick up the prescriptions that've been sent to the wrong Stillwater Walgreens over the years. More than a couple.
@bocamp - Croce’s Freestyle #672 was on the easy side for a Croce, good luck!
When used as an adjective you are exactly right. When used as a prefix, as in metaphysics, the meaning is denoting something of a higher order.
Cotchford Farm is where A.A. Milne wrote the Winnie the Pooh books and where Brain Jones ( Yep, THAT Brian Jones) died by misadventure.
Speaking of farms, who's gonna tell R. Duke that in addition to A, AA and AAA, thetes's also rookie ball, instructional league, not to mention independentdent leagues?
More imporatnt, who's gonna tell Rex that his schtick is wearisome?
So many A's. Batteries, Meeting, Average, Rdvark, and Ron Paul. I'll Say no more there.
Sweet little Monday. The rum from the eggnog has worn off but I think the shock to my cholesterol count from the quart of cream has affected my brain. Went through and filled this in and then spent 10 minutes hunting down a typo. Like I needed a challenge.
@Frantic, One of the millennials said, "Some Rando guy" last night. It's their thing. This too shall pass.
@Joseph Michael, You're hilarious!
Just right for a Monday, and the variety of the AA's didn't bother me. I wish Hank Aaron had been included, as he was my favorite player when I first got interested in baseball, but there was at least AARON(pablo)Paul, so good enough.
If you're into Boxing Day I hope you saw Foxtrot in yesterday's Sunday Funnies. A proper celebration indeed.
No time to do yesterday's puzz until this morning, due to singing and entertaining commitments. I'm with the group that printed it and had no italics for guidance, so when my solve took me to the bottom pretty early in the game, the "clues in italics" was a WTF, but then like some others I had fun finding the hidden bugs and deciphering answers and had already written in.
Nice one, AA, and easy enough to forgive the vanity involved. I thought it was Above Average for a Monday, and thanks for the fun.
@wanderlust -- On January 1, I always have a Five Favorite Clues From Last Year post.
@Birchbark: Stillwater OK has been a frequent stop for us, over the years -- we've got some very good friends there. Remember goin to a place called Eskimo Joe's there, on occasion. Our friends even bought m&e a T-shirt from EJ's, in fact. Real nice little town.
Cool vaariety of AA themers in this MonPuz. If only AHH coulda been AAH …
staff weeject pick: AVA. Has yer two A's, but kinda spread out. Primo weeject stacks in the NE & SW, btw.
fave fillins included: RANDOS (admirably rogue-ish). IGUANA/TUSSLE. EXGOVERNOR [Texas could use another one of those]. fave Ow de Speration: ALLS.
fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: {Jumping stick} = POGO.
Thanx for the easy fun, A. AA. Appreciate that some puzgrid room was left over for a few U's.
Masked & Aanonymo5Us
**gruntz**
Re: Revealer clue:
Misuse of the word 'comprise', which means contains. Therefore, "The Double A team comprises Aaron Paul, aardvark, etc. " THE PARTS DO NOT COMPRISE THE WHOLE, rather, THE WHOLE COMPRISES THE PARTS.
Aarrgh......or should I choose curtain A and go for AAH?
Being somewhat adamantine when I feel like being that way...and because I am, why couldn't AA RONSON find a clue for AAsvogel? I mean who doesn't love to profit from the suffering of others....I'll have to travel to Florida and ask a certain ex-president.
I'm going to go join @Nancy and do a slam-dunk fandango tango. Maybe @chefwen and I could also have a little wee bairn discussion over my favorite Winnie the Poo. Why not add @Frantic since the only excitement that she can handle today is AL E KEG with a side of an AL E cat frat party. We'll need some lemon and talk about the theme-y-squeezy thing.
Not a bad - if a tad ho hum - puzzle.....
I seem to recall that. AAMCO sells AABATTERIES.
Shouldn’t META have drawn a little snark from Rex, as they are now the source of over half the evil in the universe?
Can’t wait for tonight’s ALEKEGger. Hope to see you all there.
@Anonymous 836am If only EAT were clued as"__ a sandwich"
@JD 1133am Thanks for the pep talk. 😘
@Linda - Actually I am large and specific enough to both encompass <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/comprise?> both </a>usages.
@jae
Thx; on it! :)
___
td pg -1*
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
My favorite comments this morning.
Lewis (6:52)(9:37)(9:40)
jberg (10:12)
Teedmn (11:02)
I'LL SAY I'm with Nelly @8:13. I did a DOUBLE take when I came to the reveal, DOUBLE-A TEAMs. The clue to the reveal says unequivocally that the theme entries (not just their first two letters) are "teams", to wit, "...or what the answers to the starred clues comprise? How can that not be interpreted to mean that the theme answers, AA BATTERIES and others, comprise (consist of, be made up of) TEAMs? "Go AARDVARKs! Beat the AAMEETINGs!!"
This infelicity could have been avoided by a reveal along the lines of "Tennessee Smokies or Portland Seadogs or what part of the answers to the starred clues hint at."
Some will say that's overthinking. I say that not doing so is poor thinking, a failure to think things through carefully and thoroughly. Yeah, and one person's nit is another person' nuanced, insightful analysis. So there, have some of that!
Looks like there also are a few SINGLE A TEAMs scattered about.
While I'm here, how are "Total strangers" (48D) R AND O'S? Renegades AND Outliers? Refugees AND Outcasts? Got to think about that some more.
@mathgent - I agree with your NIT observation but I think the clue is fine if understood differently. A noun before "criticism" means "a criticism of the noun." For example, "My football criticism is that there is more time watching commercials than the sport during the game." The misdirection in "Little criticism" is that "little" is usually an adjective but here is standing in for the noun phrase "something little." I took the clue to mean "a criticism about something little" and not "a criticism that is little." This sort of "adjective standing in for a noun phrase" is more of a late week thing, but it is a ploy cluers use.
@Comprise - you omitted a quote mark in your html. Anyway, The usage note is more interesting, anyway. I especially like Why it has been singled out is not clear because @LMS has explained eloquently exactly why in the past.
TEAM - The revealer is calling the TEAM of A's in the answers a TEAM the same way we call a pair of oxen yoked together a TEAM. That is why it is only the "yoked together" DOUBLE A's that are TEAMs.
@Anoa Bob - RANDO is slang for "RANDOm person" and suggests a certain amount of intrusion happening. "We were having a great time at the bar when some RANDO started hitting on me."
@Z 1:47
You could also look at this as "nit" is short for (or "little") nit-picking. For example, someone may say "I only have one nit about this puzzle...", in which nit is a little criticism, rather than using the whole phrase.
While I cannot promise this is the case, I am fairly sure that I have seen something said to this effect in this blog in the past.
Trey
@Nellie + @Anoa Bob. I think you need to read both the dictionary and the clue a little better.
com·prise
/kəmˈprīz/
verb
verb: comprise; 3rd person present: comprises; past tense: comprised; past participle: comprised; gerund or present participle: comprising
consist of; be made up of.
"the country comprises twenty states"
Similar:
consist of
be made up of
be composed of
contain
take in
embrace
encompass
incorporate
include
involve
cover
comprehend
make up; constitute.
"this single breed comprises 50 percent of the Swiss cattle population"
Similar
The answers to the starred clues constitute (for purposes of this puzzle), the AA Team (or “Double A Team). The starred answers are a group (a team, if you will) of AA things.
You’re still invited to the ALEKEGger.
It was refreshing to go to the NYT Wordplay blog first to read about today's puzzle.
And then to come here to read rex's latest NIT.
I think Conrad @5:07 is right on the money. This was close to as fine a Monday puz as we'll see.
I mean, I mean, if we must have an AARON, Burr is closer to real evil. I mean, he killed Hamilton, after all.
@eggs, the dictionary is my favorite book. I have two well-worn hard copies close at hand. I think your saying TEAM works "for the purposes of this puzzle" is is a tacit admission that it doesn't work "for the purposes of standard English language usage". How do BATTERIES, MEETING, AARDVARK, MILNE, AVERAGE and PAUL comprise a TEAM in any ordinary sense of the word? If that group is a TEAM then any bunch of arbitrary, disconnected words is a TEAM.
Oh, wait a minute! Maybe it's a rebus puzzle!
@Southside...
Can anyone suggest a fresh clue for ELSA
actually, I never heard of the clue. no squirts around the house I guess. so it's quite fresh/raw to me.
1 - Lancaster Bride of Frankenstein, Miss Plimsol (to her real husband)
2 - that lion
3 - the Italian actress Martinelli
4 - Mrs. Einstein
(disclaimer: I had the first three from my lower brain stem memory, but got the last by typing 'elsa' into the wiki search, but I knew that last one, too; just not easily retrieved)
@Joe Welling:
I didn't know there was an Anarchists Anonymous. If there isn't there should be, and he'd be Czar.
@various:
does it not seem that OFL complains when clues/answers either don't line up and when they do?
Funday Monday or, nod to @Franyic, fun-dee Mon-dee. However you phrase ot, this hit all the appropriate week beginning notes. Felt as if @Rex just could not get his cranky pants off after some serious rantings (not, in my humble opinion entirely misplaced) last week. I found the theme just fine, couldn’t possibly care less if we are talking batteries, initials or animals with long schnozzolas.
I possibly gave some love just because of a reference to AA Baseball, only about six weeks to spring training after all! We haven’t seen Mr. Milne in a long while; welcome back. Plenty to im i e with IPAS and an entire ALE KEG. Possibly warming up for the NYE party? I know I am. My niece gets married this evening in Chicago via Zoom and will return home (no way to do a real honeymoon in a pandemic!) to a very small gathering at my house for games and fun to welcome in a hopefully better year.
Good start to the last of 2021.
@Anon - omg, I’m 0 for 3 walking up to the plate for what is probably my last at bat, and I don’t know if I would get the fourth clue for ELSA (I did know that, just not sure if I could retrieve it from the dark recesses (LOBES ?) of my brain.
Nit to pick: PHRASE (69A) is not the best answer for clue, "Section of a sentence." That would be CLAUSE, A phrase may be part of sentence, or not, or even a whole sentence itself.
@Anon 3:41 – there's Elsa L. Vador. Also, Elsa Lón-México. Aaron(!) Copland dedicated a piece to her.
Elsa Benítez (born 1977), Mexican model
Elsa Borg (1826-1909), Swedish social worker
Elsa Brändström (1888–1948), Swedish philanthropist
Elsa Beata Bunge (1734–1819), Swedish botanist
Elsa Patricia Galarza Contreras (born 1963), Peruvian economist
Elsa Ehrich (1914–1948), German Nazi SS concentration camp guard executed for war crimes
Elsa Einstein (1876–1936), German, Albert Einstein's second wife
Elsa Eschelsson (1861–1911), first Swedish woman doctor in law
Elsa Fougt (1744–1826), Swedish publisher
Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (1874–1927), German artist/poet
Duchess Elsa of Württemberg (1876–1936)
Elsa Gye (1881–1943), suffragette
Elsa Hosk (born 1988), Swedish model
Elsa Kazi (1884–1967), German writer and German origin Sindhi woman. famous for her poem The Neem Tree (Sindhi: نم جو وڻ).
Elsa Klensch (born 1933), Australian-American Fashion Commentator
Elsa Lanchester (1902–1986), English-American actress, probably best known for playing the Bride of Frankenstein
Elsa Leviseur (born 1932), South African-born American architect.
Elsa Lindberg-Dovlette (1874–1944), Swedish writer and princess of Persia
Elsa Lunghini (born 1973), French singer
Elsa Martinelli (born 1932 or 1935), Italian actress and former fashion model
Elsa Maxwell (1883–1963), American gossip columnist and author, songwriter, and professional hostess
Elsa Morante (1912–1985), Italian novelist
Elsa Pataky (born 1976), Spanish actress, model, and film producer
Elsa Peretti (1940–2021), Italian jewelry designer
Elsa Ratassepp (1893-1972), Estonian actress
Elsa Raven (1929–2020), American actress
Elsa Salazar Cade (born 1952), American entomologist/educator
Elsa Schiaparelli (1890–1973), Italian fashion designer of the 1920s and 1930s
Elsa Maria Sylvestersson (1924–1996), Finnish ballet dancer and choreographer
Elsa Triolet (1896–1970), French writer
Elsa Zylberstein (born 1968), French actress
Fictional characters
Elsa (Frozen), from Disney's animated film Frozen
Elsa (Once Upon a Time), from the ABC television series Once Upon a Time
Elsa (Symphogear), a character in the anime series Symphogear
Elsa of Brabant, heroine of the Wagnerian opera Lohengrin
Baroness Elsa von Schraeder, from the film and stage show The Sound of Music
Elsa Schneider, from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Elsa Cleeg, of Kim Possible
Elsa Carrington, character from Secret Agent
Elsa Frankenstein, character from Son of Frankenstein
Elsa Frankenstein, character from The Ghost of Frankenstein and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
Elsa Granhiert, character from Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World
Elsa de Sica, from the manga/anime Gunslinger Girl
Elsa La Conti, from the video game series Arcana Heart
Elsa Lichtmann, from the L.A. Noire
Elsa Shivers from I Know What You Did Last Summer
Elsa Mars, of American Horror Story: Freak Show, portrayed by Jessica Lange
Elsa Tilsley, in the British soap opera Coronation Street
Exelsa, formerly Elsa, from the sitcom La familia P. Luche
Elsa, from Power Rangers Dino Thunder
Elsa, from Jojo Rabbit
Elsa Gardner, from Atypical
Elsa, from The Fundamentals of Caring
Elsa, one of the main characters in Armour of God II: Operation Condor
Other
Elsa the Lioness, subject of the book and film Born Free
Hurricane Elsa, a Category 1 Atlantic hurricane in 2021
Good to see my AVAtar is meaningful again! Or maybe it's AAVAtar...
Easy puzz, <2 Rexes (see? he posted a time again), not much else to say.
Did not get to yesterpuzz. Was busy doing all the New Yorker stuff in the 12/27 issue (came last week). But, as someone commented recently, it's less fun when you don't have this place to share about it afterwards.
Our son is recovering well from little o, and his gf has only a mild case, so that was the best Christmas present!
@Joe Dipinto:
WOW!! I bow in homage.
@Anon 5:00
Just WOW!
You can't turn your back on the day's comments for a single second -- lest something crop up that you don't have (or remember) the origin story for. I'm darned if I can find an ELSA, any ELSA at all in the grid. So why are 1,063 different ELSAs being cited in the 5:00 comment?
Of the cited ELSAs, I would accept in my puzzle only the following ELSAs-- and I'd squawk loudly about any additional ones.
Acceptable ELSAs:
Lanchester
Maxwell
Peretti
Schiaparelli
the "Frozen" Elsa
Elsa the Lioness
That's it, everyone. No other ELSAs. Fair warning. Otherwise a big squawk.
@Nancy
52 Across (Disney Snow Queen).
Seven theme answers is a lot. But, for the revealer to really work, they're should've been nine. ⚾️
@smith
A happy holiday indeed!!!
I'm still waiting for a video of someone, anyone, solving the puzzle in 2:38. I physically can't type all the letters in that amount of time, let alone read the clues and process them. Not saying it isn't possible, but working as fast as I can on an easy Monday with no snags I can only muster a low 7ish time.
@Anon 8:11
here ya go!
@JC66 - Touche! Absolutely amazing. I am challenged by my hunt-and-peck typing method and my solving process of working across, then down, then fill in the rest (which apparently is not the speedy approach). Now that I have seen it, I will never doubt it again. Thanks.
@all of you ELSAites - without giving any spoilers ELSA Greer is a fairly prominent character in Christie’s Five Little Pigs.
They are minor league baseball teams that are two levels below the major leagues. AAA teams feed players to the majors, while AA teams feed them to AAA.
I too was struck by the inconsistency of this Monday conceit. Initials and parts of names and...at least we know the answer to "Why do it?" Must be nice to have a life where you're always the first called on when taking attendance.
Even the long downs were meh. It's a Garfield-ish Monday. Bogey.
Oh, DOD? You know it has to be Sissy: she has SPACE in her name!
A vanity puzzle that needed much more to make it at all relatable. ALEKEG? TIVO? IPAS? ELL? ILLSAY Mr. SHORTS needs to sharpen his PENcil.
HEAR, HEAR, NODSTO UBER
PEOPLE TUSSLE for their IPAS,
and ISEE that RIVAL RANDOS beg
for the ONE time that I'LLSAY this PHRASE,
"This AAMEETING needs an ALEKEG!"
--- ELSA SPACEK
Hey hey hey! I think the "conceit" gave the puzzle a bit of Wednesday salt on a Monday. Making it even more enjoyable.
I give it an A+.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
The St. Paul paper is really getting sloppy; no clue for 25d. Didn't really need it but these errors are getting more frequent.
ILLSAY at 1d, but ISAY in the corners.
Sorry AVA, LAURA, Mmes. SPACEK and OLIN, but SARA Bareilles is the best of the puz ANGELS today.
Not AA big TUSSLE. Or is that BugTUSSLE?
To the DOUBLE A TEAM, let’s add some DOUBLE LL’s, SS’s, EE’s, and HH’s, and end up with a slick and quick solve.
I reaLLy aPPreciate Adam AAronson’s work this one. (No kiDDing.)
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