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Vertical dimension of a flag / FRI 12-3-21 / Actress Mara of Pose / Longtime newswoman Ifill / One of nine for a traditional Baha'i temple / Pet that's mostly black with a white chest
Friday, December 3, 2021
Constructor: Claire Rimkus
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
Word of the Day: Quintana ROO (8D: Quintana ___, Mexican state that's home to Cancún) —
Quintana Roo (/kɪnˌtɑːnə ˈroʊ(oʊ)/ kin-TAH-nə ROH(-oh), Spanish: [kinˈtana ˈro]), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Quintana Roo (Spanish: Estado Libre y Soberano de Quintana Roo), is one of the 31 states which, with Mexico City, constitute the 32 federal entities of Mexico. It is divided into 11 municipalities and its capital city is Chetumal.Quintana Roo is located on the eastern part of the Yucatán Peninsula and is bordered by the states of Campeche to the west and Yucatán to the northwest, and by the Orange Walk and Corozal districts of Belize, along with an offshore borderline with Belize District to the south. As Mexico's easternmost state, Quintana Roo has a coastline to the east with the Caribbean Sea and to the north with the Gulf of Mexico. The state previously covered 44,705 square kilometers (17,261 sq mi) and shared a small border with Guatemala in the southwest of the state. (wikipedia)
• • •
GAY ICONS ushered me into that corner, but then I just sat there, practically alone at the SE corner party; I just stood there looking around for anyone I recognized and just when I was beginning to despair, after consulting all the short answers and coming up blank each time, I bent down to pick up a stray DIXIE cup and when I stood up, tada! A TUXEDO CAT came bounding into the room bringing all the other SE corner party guests with him. In short, I will never forget TUXEDO CAT, the real hero of this puzzle. TUXEDO CAT: he's a good boy.
But back to HAS NO IDEA corner. I had no idea about BOTH or BRAT or OHIO, all of which were kinda important for getting traction. BOTH seems really poorly clued to me, since "this and that" means a random assortment of things, and even if you highly literalize it, if the set is not clearly limited to two, then "this and that" simply doesn't evoke BOTH-ness. If you italicize *and*, maybe. But as is, meh, bah, etc. I also had STAY for 1D: Challenge while sitting (think dogs). Then when I got BRAT I sincerely thought "Are you sitting ... down ... for a BRAT-eating contest?" But it's an annoying child BRAT, not the sausage BRAT. As for the OHIO "joke," oof, no comment. No comment but oof (2D: Answer to the old riddle "What's round on the ends and high in the middle?"). Not sure how I finally hammered my way out of there—I think I had to go down the west coast and work back up. Yes, the record shows that that is what I did. ONE'S and TONES and IRKS READS IFFIER and off we go:
Still had to grind a bit because the main clue leading into the NE absolutely wouldn't budge. I'm talking specifically about 5D: Out-of-office procedure? (OUSTER). It's a fine "?" clue, but brutal, Saturday-esque stuff for me. Luckily the short stuff in the north wasn't too hard so those long answers flew across the grid fast and OUSTER eventually fell, and once I escaped the grip of that damn NW corner, things got considerably easier, though the cluing stayed pretty thorny throughout. I sort of forgot the meaning of "Coruscates" and so faced with -INTS I wrote in PAINTS. To my slight credit, I was kinda in the ballpark, in that the answer *does* have to do with the play of light, which is also a consideration in painting (oil painting, I mean). To my somewhat larger credit, I realized PAINTS was wrong pretty quickly and then got GLINTS on my own without help from the crosses. I wrote in FAIL before FLOP (44D: Completely bomb). I didn't know the "Pose" actress. I forgot LAPIS was a color and I didn't recognize it untethered from the phrase "lapis lazuli" (27D: Shade akin to royal blue). And as I say, the short answers in the SE all came up blank for me at first. But otherwise, I made steady progress and quite enjoyed myself. And again, let's give it up for TUXEDO CAT!
He sat there for ages making this face once he realised I was going to let him have a strawberry.
— Holly Brockwell (@holly) December 2, 2021
He didn't even eat it pic.twitter.com/10v54iatl0
Not much needs explaining today, I don't think. I do have a couple more clue disputes. First of all, STEADY GIG (37A: Nice position to be in?) ... why is there a "?" clue. I don't really see the wordplay, or the joke. Is it the idea that "position" seems metaphorical in the clue but it's literal in the answer? There's just not enough ... misdirection to qualify for the "?", I don't think. Ill-conceived. The answer (a good one) ended up feeling like a let down. "That's it?" Also, if it was "Made last night," how is it DAY OLD? (41D). The "night" part is really throwing me. You make stuff at night to serve in the morning ... that stuff would not be considered DAY OLD. The stuff still hanging around from the day before, *that's* DAY OLD. I mean, a "day" hasn't even elapsed if the stuff (whatever it is) was made "last night." Why not just take the cross-reference cluing opportunity that is staring you right in the face: DAY-OLD / BAGEL? Sigh. I just wish the clues had hit their marks a little more often in this one. But that's my only real complaint. The grid looks good, and in the main, the clues are just fine.
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127 comments:
Medium-Challenging indeed. I zipped through the North, no problem (or only minor issues). Then I hit the South and I come to a full, air-brakes stop as I BONK[S] into a wall. Had no idea that 29D BAGEL was tennis slang and couldn't see STEADY GIG at 37A, but what really hurt me was pop divas for GAY ICONS at 47A. I am so remiss in California geography that I don't know the seat of every county in fact, any county except possibly Los Angeles County. Didn't see DIXIE at 39A, and that made @Rex's friend the TUXEDO CAT at 31D hard to see. Good Friday workout.
AAAHHH....(Baby)sitting. Now that's diabolical!
A good challenging Friday.
@Rex discussed This and that. You have to say it aloud, emphasizing "and" to get the BOTH meaning. This AND that.
WORks before WORLD for Everything.........with "the".
shINeS before GLINTS.
cONKS before BONKS.
endS before AIMS
This solve was a satisfying workout.
I think "steady gig" is clued with a question mark because of the phrase "nice and steady." That, at least, was my in.
A challenging Friday for me although the opposite of @Conrad - the NW corner was the last to fall. Thanks Clair!
Played as a fairly hard Saturday, and one of my favorite types of puzzles – one where you never speed up. Where you are plodding along just as slowly at the end as you were at the beginning. Not because of proper names, but because of challenging cluing.
This is the kind of puzzle we used to get 15 years ago, before trivia-laden clues became trendy.
@ Shandini 1:36 yesterday: agree 100%. Rex completely whiffed on the theme yesterday, and as far as I can see you are the only person who picked up on it.
This puzzle was obviously a shout out to our beloved ROOmonster. ROO at 8D and 5 F's including a double.
Not sure I’m justifying this using TUXEDO CAT or not. Agree that it’s a clean grid and more Saturday like in the misdirect cluing but it wasn’t a lot of fun. Just didn’t get too many aha’s from the ? clues.
Liked the UP TO NO GOOD - SECOND WIND stack especially crossing GWEN. Both SODDING and IFFIER IRKS me. Backed into things I didn’t know or care about like TEASED or GAY ICONS - I started with pop. Did like the alternative cluing of the oft seen ACAI.
Enjoyed the Friday technical workout - but just there just wasn’t much splash for me.
GOBAG? No thank you. That’s a prepper word.
Some really excellent clues today (BRAT, BAGEL, ETRE for example), and it’s Friday so some things are going to be “out there” like OSIRIS, RAFAEL, LAPIS). The beauty of the rest of it is that the clues are straightforward while still being Friday-difficult. Another one for the winners column today.
Having read this blog and the comments for several years now, I’ve noticed that people tend to have a certain “zone of discomfort” with certain types of clues - some will take exception to a math or science clue that is not 100% technically accurate, others find it troubling when a clue is not an exact synonym, and some like myself have a hard time when the clue is actually using a second or third meaning of a word (occasionally as part of a deliberate misdirection). Today we have Rex, who does a zillion puzzles a week and is certainly familiar with the concept of “close enough for CrossWorld” actually commenting about BOTH - gees, what could be more straightforward than that - if you take this one and that one, you took BOTH of them. That clue/answer would be right at home as entry 1A on a Monday, and yet it is in Rex’s zone of discomfort. I’ve gotten a lot of good insight from reading the comments here - and right at the top of the list in terms of raising my solving enjoyment was accepting the fact that the clues are “hints” and not literal definitions/questions etc that would have to pass the same level of scrutiny as if it were on a graduate level engineering exam or a legal brief, lol.
As for the "Made last night" clue, I think that the clue had to be phrased like this to avoid having "day" in the clue (as in "Made yesterday"). I guess it could be clued as "Like some bread on sale", but that is assuming that day-old bread on sale is a common thing rather than something that I saw as a child that was not common.
Excellent Friday puzzle, tough but fair. Fun!
Definitely challenging...but unlike others I ended up solving fromm south to north. BRAT was my last fill
Yes, so good, so good, so good, as my Tuxedo Cat, Caroline would say if she spoke. Agree with @kitshef. Fab Friday.
Caroline, or C-Line, as we call her, is the 4th black & white cat who has graced my life. They are clowns: cuddly and personable. As T.S. Eliot wrote of another B&W cat:
Bustopher Jones is not skin and bones--
In fact, he's remarkably fat.
He doesn't haunt pubs--he has eight or nine clubs,
For he's the St. James's Street Cat!
He's the Cat we all greet as he walks down the street
In his coat of fastidious black:
No commonplace mousers have such well-cut trousers
Or such an impreccable back.
In the whole of St. James's the smartest of names is
The name of this Brummell of Cats;
And we're all of us proud to be nodded or bowed to
By Bustopher Jones in white spats!
How cool to find one of my favorite towns, San RAFAEL, in the NYTX! Charming and somewhat old-fashioned California town with the best Farmer's Market in the state -- the Thursday & Sunday market at the Marin County Civic Center, in front of the Frank Lloyd Wright civic center (aka "the Jetsons' building").
The other fun clue was "cassowary kin." Although they have an undeserved reputation as vicious killers, they are not aggressive -- but if they do get mad, watch out. An Australian friend told me of a couple he knows who bought a house in a remote area of Far North Queensland. The house was rundown and they spent quite a bit fixing it up, then furnished it with expensive electronic equipment, a huge TV, etc. One of the improvements was a sliding glass door that looked out onto the vast landscape.
Then, one day, a cassowary happened by. Curious, it approached the house, and saw its own reflection in the sliding glass doors.
Five minutes later, the interior of the house was in shreds.
I just don’t understand 1D. Is this some nonobvious use for the word BRAT?
Lovely puzzle otherwise. Great Friday fun! And I’m with Southside Johnny — clues are hints, not textbook definitions.
Agree with Rex about almost everything he said. Wow, how often does that happen ? And had the same "never speed up" feeling about the solve as @kitshef. Great start to the weekend. Hope everyone enjoys theirs.
I had a little trouble in the NE because I misremembered Ms. Ifill's name as GlEN, and had shINeS for the coruscation, both easily fixed.
The SW, however -- worshipFUL sitting under hasta lueGO -- each a better fit with its clue -- and then WORks. And although I believe I have disembarked from the ferry in San RAFAEL, I couldn't remember it until I got the A from DEAD SET.
But it all came together, and was a great challenge.
@Southside, I almost fell over when you started your comment by praising a word in a foreign language. You've changed.
Specs?
@SouthsideJohnny (7:48) - Right you are regarding the nature of crossword puzzles.
Another poster (@Mathgent) declared a position I took a while back to be "Joaquin's dictum". It is this: Clues are just hints; they're not definitions and they're not synonyms. So they need not be precise and don't need to apply in all situations. They're just "clues" to assist one in figuring out the answers.
Yesterday someone complained that the letters N-A-C-L don't equal salt when "shaken up" and not in the proper order. News flash: It was crossword wordplay, not a scientific research paper.
And wordplay is always more fun than a scientific analysis. I, for one, prefer as much fun as I can get out of life.
I will now put my soapbox away in my wheelhouse, where I also found today's puzzle (except for "coruscates", which must have sneaked in).
Some random thoughts:
• This is the third major-league playful – as in wordplay – puzzle in a row. To which I say, “Whee!” I need no gifts this Christmas. Look at those clues for OUSTER, ETRE, WARM, LOAN, RODEO, and LAYS, and my favorite: [Challenge while sitting] for BRAT.
• I learned “coruscate”. I may never use it but I’ll know what it means when I see it.
• I also learned the amazing fact in the mini that all odd numbers contain the letter E, only to have it re-enforced by ODDS in this puzzle.
• Spotless grid with lovely answers: UP TO NO GOOD, SECOND WIND, TUXEDO CAT, DEAD SET, TEMPT FATE. Great skill all around.
• Stout toughness in places, but the portcullis never dropped, and faith pulled me through. Perfect Friday level, and there’s an art to creating that.
• I’m not sad that the puzzle has SIDE / SEED / SOD.
• I love the little morality tale of FLOP / SECOND WIND / ARISE.
Claire, you’re a beast, and thank you, for I’m riding a high into my day. Brava!
I don’t have a time to compare, but I have only two writeovers, and they aren’t full writeovers (I often lightly write in possible answers when none of the crosses work initially not really expecting them to end being right - this is different from when I write something in thinking it is right and then it turns out to be wrong) so I wasn’t particularly fooled by anything. Just a tentative joKE becoming TYKE and an even more tentative stash becoming GO BAG. Really nothing too nanosecond consuming and lots of fun stuff all around. My guess is medium at most.
Rex is wrong. The BOTH clue is fine. Sure sure, “this and that” can be used to mean far more than two things, but it can also be literal. All I needed was OHIO to suss it out (also the occasional reminder that Rex went to graduate school in Michigan but grew up in California - I’m pretty sure that riddle is an elementary school graduation requirement in the entire midwest).
I loved the BRAT clue and the OUSTER clue. Experienced the double fake out at STEADY GIG by assuming the Nice in the clue was in France. The clue was tricky because it wasn’t tricky. 💋 mwah 💋 Then I had my moment of schadenfreude at the appearance of GAY ICONS.
BAGEL for zero (0) is a sports term generally, but I don’t recall ever hearing it in a specifically tennis context. I was looking for something love related, so that and not seeing TYKE or GO BAG right away made that small center section the hardest for me.
@Keith D & @Shandini yesterday - Are you familiar with the phrase Ceci n’est pas une pipe? Scrambling the letters in a word is a common crossword trope. We can safely assume the actual object has not been harmed in the making of any crossword puzzle
This one ran as an average Friday for me, and an enjoyable one with minimal PPP. My main write overs were StatS for SPECS (though I thought both were wrong, as there was nothing in the cluing suggesting a shortening of the words), cONKS for BONKS, eRupt for ARISE (though my answer felt off), and WORks for WORLD. Other than that, the only sticking point for me is I just could not bring RAFAEL to mind for an embarrassingly long time, having R-F-E- down on the grid. Overall, exactly the kind of Friday I enjoy. Slow & steady wins the race with no major roadblocks.
@Trey - I do agree that the clue made for DAYOLD struck me as inaccurate -- not so much because of any hyperliteralism on my part, but rather that I've never heard of goods made the night before described as "day old." In my experience, it refers usually to bread (or similar) products that have been baked for the previous morning or afternoon. And my local grocery that has its own bakery still sells day-old bread, where you can get a wonderful 2 pound loaf of Polish rye (with or without caraway) for $1.99 (and a day-old one-pound loaf for $0.99) instead of the usual $3.99. While nothing beats fresh bread, day-old bread still tastes fine and if you toast it, you'd be none the wiser. Jimmy John's is another place that commonly sells day-old bread (or at least they did -- I haven't been there in a while. Yes, I know about the owner.)
@Anonymous 7:33 - I can't tell whether your comment is somewhat sarcastic or not, but GO BAGs are no only in the realm of preppers (who, in my experience, actually span the political spectrum.) Unfortunately, the realm I most usually hear it in is in regards to domestic violence victims, which doesn't leave a pleasant taste, either, for a Friday puzzle. That said, I personally have no issue with unpleasantness in my grid.
What do the blank squares mean?
Sped through this with only a couple of snags, so seeing that OFL rated it as on the tough side has now made my morning. If you know OHIO then RHEA and AIMS appear, followed by TEMPTFATE and away we go. STEADYJOB before STEADYGIG and GAYIDOLS before GAYICONS but everything else was pretty much a first guess.
Didn't know HOIST as clued, ditto for the fact about odd numbers. Our TUXEDOCAT is recovering from some urinary issues (apologies to breakfast eaters) and is back to normal. Since he is a 2004 October, the Year of the Broken Curse, cat we named him Theo, as in Theo Epstein. His brother is Fenway, of course.
I liked the two and three word phrases in this one. I'm counting thirteen, and they were all zippy and in the language. Nice stuff.
In short, this made me possibly as happy as Lewis, i. e., very happy. Well done indeed, CR. Thanks for a fun Friday that was rewarding with a Capital R.
Perhaps you didn't watch much NBC tennis coverage of Wimbledon in the 1972-2007 period. Bud Collins, the Boston Globe sportswriter who died in 2016, used the term with some frequency, or at least enough times that I remembered so, that the clue was a gimme for me.
@kitshef at 7:19 : interesting that your impression is that the puzzles have less trivia now than before. My impression is the opposite, that currently Fridays and especially Saturdays are all wordplay, all the time in the NYT. There was a recent puzzle that was more trivia-oriented, and it stuck out like a sore thumb to me.
What are others' impression on the subject?
@anon8:27 - “Challenge while sitting” means “challenge while babysitting, and the BRAT is a snotty 7 year-old.
@Axel - SPECS as in “specifications” not “spectacles.”
@Shirley F - It took me a nanosecond to realize the cassowary hadn’t bought a house.
@Elaine - What blank squares?
I know this was a TOP NOTCH Friday but it was a bit of a slog for me. Not a complete FLOP but I was relieved to see Rex call it challenging so I feel I need to only moderately DEFEND my epic* inadequacy.
Squinted a side eye at the clues for BRAT and DAY OLD but a GLINT of joy upon learning the new word “coruscates.”
*Imagine not being able to see TUXEDO CAT when there’s one sitting on your lap. [sigh]
As requested yesterday -- I'm posting this again:
A heads-up for today: Will Nediger and I have a puzzle appearing tomorrow (Friday) in Universal Crosswords. That's the online puzzle edited by David Steinberg. It's open to everyone, so if you just go to Universal Crosswords, it'll come right up. Best of all, there's nothing to download. This particular venue has a headline for each puzzle, even for puzzles containing a revealer. If you can possibly avoid looking at the headline before you solve, you'll find the puzzle quite a bit harder and enjoy it more.
9:50 AM
This was a Jekyll and Hyde puzzle. The NW half was typically easy Friday. When I tried getting into the SE half the wheels came off. For awhile it felt like the solving part of my brain had shut off. Almost nothing clicked. Using the few gimmies I could find I slowly got it moving again.
This solve wound up being in solid Saturday territory. BAGEL, LAPIS and GOBAG were the last to fall.
yd -1 (because of the drink it's not proper...sheesh)
Alternate clue for 29A: Tech billionaire at birth.
Thx Claire; nice, crunchy Fri. puz! :)
Med.+
Had a tough time getting a foothold; put in ITCH, but took it out when nothing else seemed to go with it.
Got all the way the the bottom, with nada, and the thot occurred to me that maybe I should pack it in for the night and take it up in the morning. but along came CAT (didn't know what kind of) / ACAI.
So, in a very unusual solve, I worked my way west out of the SE, and slowly but surely up; everything eventually fell into place.
Had some hesitation at WARM / MOE, misunderstanding (I think) the clueing for WARM (was thinking possibly WARp(ed) / pOE (as a surname). Finally, dawned on me the misdirection of the clue.
In spite of being far away from Claire's wavelength, I enjoyed this offering very much, and am glad I didn't give up for the night.
___
yd 0*
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Fine puzzles, today and yesterday.
I’m a day late doing Thursday’s puzzle, mainly because my paper arrived very late Thursday. Perhaps I’ll be allowed to make a comment here. Especially nice to see one of my old stomping grounds, the Vatican Library, make an appearance. I hope to get back there soon.
The clue for the library is “Papal collection overseen by a bibliothecarius.” This is ok if one uses “overseen” loosely and is not asking for a director. The director of the Vatican Library is the Praefectus (commonly used for an overseer in classical Rome). If one used the term *bibliothecarius* (a rare word in antiquity, and only very late) at the Vatican today one would, I think, refer simply to a librarian, and a mid-level librarian. Since all librarians in a sense “oversee” collections, perhaps the clue is fine.
A few trivia about the library. On the grounds of the library and off a courtyard is a very pretty bar (normally for coffee but liquor is there also). Within the library smoking is not permitted, of course (perhaps not “of course” fifty years ago), and one might be tempted to go to the bar for a smoke. Prominently displayed in the bar is a sign, in Italian, which reads “anyone found smoking anywhere on the grounds of the Vatican Library will be expelled at once and forever.” Some question whether smoking is permitted in the adjacent courtyard, and I think the rule there has not been consistent. But the real debate is over whether the “forever” (per sempre) means that one will be banned from the Vatican Library in the next world as well as this one.
In decades of sporadic work at the Library, I have never seen one single graffito in the men’s bathroom. Here I think everyone’s mind works just like mine. As we imagine it, as soon as a graffito appears, two bibliothecarii, experts in paleography (who tend to be very good at neography) would appear, bearing that day’s sign-in sheets of names, and discover very quickly who had written the graffito (look! the ductus in the letter ** and the serif in the **!). Since graffiti tend to be obscene or critical of those in authority, or both, the culprit could expect to be banned from the library “subito e per sempre” (at once and forever).
Anon. i.e. Poggius
@pabloinnh - I looked up HOIST post solve and realized I’d misinterpreted the clue. The “vertical dimension” is how high off the ground (or deck, I suppose) the flag is being flown. I was imagining a synonym for “width” that applied to a flying flag. Once I looked it up I realized that I had heard HOIST this way but had just misunderstood the clue.
@Anon 9:33 - Really hard to say because a well demonstrated phenomenon related to trivia is the wheelhouse effect. That is, solvers do not tend to notice how much trivia is in a puzzle when they know it. That a RHEA is related to a CASSOWARY is trivia, but most experienced Friday solvers aren’t going to spend even a full nanosecond figuring that out and so it doesn’t register as trivia. OTOH, Five Guys Named MOE seems like the type of trivia that will really register as irksome for some just because it’s not particularly well known and is clearly just an attempt to get away from the B&W Three Stooges clue.
Staying with MOE, the clue might make it register as trivia for different types of solvers. People into Broadway musicals might really like this clue while for me it was just spotlighting the crosswordese. If they had gone with a Three Stooges clue I might barely notice it while fans of the musical might see it as arcana from the now distant past. But it is still only one trivia answer.
Now on to Claire's bear of a puzzle...
Very hard and quite wonderful. The clues for both 1A and 1D are fiendishly clever...and it only gets "worse" from there. I wanted OLIO (never thought of BOTH) at 1A, though didn't write it in, and I certainly never thought of the brilliantly clued BRAT.
I can't even remember where I entered this monster. I think it was the IRKS/IFFIER section, though IFFIER seemed sort of...iffy. Oh, yes, and ITCH gave me SECOND WIND, confirmed by GWEN and SODDING -- so I had a foothold there, too. It was TEMPT FATE that got me back up into the NW and enabled me to solve there.
But I needed one half of a cheat. (I always pick the one that seems least "cheat-y"). So I looked up the meaning of "coruscates". I had ??INTS and thought it might be taINTS. Or could it be paINTS? There sounded like there was a degree of ruination involved -- like turning to rust. But that's not it at all. Google told me it means a flash of light. Aha! GLINTS!!!! Now "coruscates" is a word I've never used. A word I'm sure I never shall use. But anyway...
GLINTS got me GO BAG and GO BAG got me STEADY GIG and LOAN (I was thinking A SIN) and suddenly no further cheating was necessary.
A wonderfully clued puzzle -- where the difficulty is in the cluing and not in arcane bits of useless trivia. I thought it was a terrific challenge.
Just dropped in to say congrats, @Nancy and @Lewis, for your frolic of a puzzle! Got the trick early, which made for a speedy trip. I particularly enjoyed the profusion of double letters, and of course the shout outs to a couple of the gang. Now on to today's nytxw.
@Anon 9:33 - we may be defining trivia differently. To me, an actor on some show only available on streaming is trivia, but historical figures, Greek gods, world capitals etc. are not.
Now, go back 35 years instead of 15, and you get more 'trivial' trivia - the seventeenth-longest river in Slovenia and such.
Great Friday. Top Notch cluing with tougher things somewhat easy to get with crosses, even with some benign stretches. Staircase grid configuration (my favorite, not sure what it's actually called).
Is a Hoist really a dimension of the flag or the flagpole, or is the flagpole really just a Hoist? Doesn't the most common usage of Day Old mean made, not sold yesterday, and stale and half price today? But I'm Rexing.
Great cluing for Brat, Rhea (tricky, tricky, the emu(s) and Cassowary are also related), Steady Gig, and Loan. Stumped when the brain shot a blank on GayIcon (NeoCon) until I saw two words. My brain is a comedian.
Claire Rimkus' second puzzle in the NYT. She's a keeper. This was everything I hope for on a Friday.
23D didn’t strike me as anything out of the ordinary. When I worked for a living, we had a formal contingency plan in case of emergency scenarios such as a power outage or catastrophic weather event. One of the requirements was a GO BAG which contained a flashlight, batteries, portable radio, first aid supplies etc.
On the subject of ICONS, I’m wondering if anyone HAS any IDEA on the status of @Frantic. She’s been MIA for a couple of weeks now.
Tough. This was more Saturday than Friday. My solve was similar to @Rex’s, lots a staring with the East side tougher than the West.
Excellent challenge, liked it a bunch!
We really enjoyed the first season of Love Life with Anna Kendrick.
Hey All !
I have a vacation house in Quintana ROO, naturally. (Fact check: untrue.) Har. Nice they named the place after me...
Toughie for me. Didn't outright cheat, but did look up meanings of words I didn't know, ala Coruscates and Reverent. (Reverent seems like something I should know. Dang brain.) Oh, and what a Cassowary is. Once I found out, erased my correct OHIO to put EMUS in. From some deep dark place in the ole brain, I actually remembered a RHEA is a type of flightless bird. Wow. Figured OHIO had to be right. That joke was worn out while I was still a kid. So got that corner, even though BRAT was a Hug? until others explained it here.
tsA messing me up in the South, along with popICONS. Didn't know Mariah Carey was a GAY ICON. I thought one had to actually be gay (or bi-) to get ICON status. I don't think she is. Or does she stand up for GAY rights? I never know what's going on. But finally figured out SW corner, clue for WARM kinda silly. Also having FLub first for FLOP, but changing it once I saw ADIOS, which also got me to see AMIGO, thereby changing tsA to MTA.
I'm guessing the clue for SPECS was a Will rewrite. Clue for ETRE was great! Also, LAYS had me completely thinking computer chips, so we'll done there.
@Anon 7:22
Now I don't have to count the F's! Thanks.
BAGEL was funny as clued. Probably heard it before, but never stuck for some reason. Laughed at HAS NO IDEA because I say it a lot!
yd -6 should'ves 3
Five F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
@kitschef 7:19 - I completely disagree with your comment about what we used to get 15 years ago - there were certainly solid puzzles back then, but I have gone back and done many of the puzzles over the years that I missed before becoming a regular solver. Many of these were harder puzzles than today (at least in my mind), but some of that is due to obscure words or obscure people (for example, prime ministers of England or Israel from the 1940s-60s). To me, that is the pinnacle of trivia. It seems to me that the older puzzles had fewer instances of current (or semi-current) obscurity in them (for example, I do not recall instances of slang similar to PWN being in the older puzzles), but there certainly was trivia.
A few days ago someone tried to define trivia on this blog that seemed to leave out historical people or events, but a broader definition would include any fact that is not generally known. If you attend trivia events at schools or the local bar, they seem to use the broader definition.
@Zÿ, reading comments now. Thank you! Tried looking up Hoist/Flag but just got hits on the NYT clue. I feel fake smarter that.
Thank you @amyyanni, that's a happier Eliot cat than the foggy one!
@Poggius one of my favorites, Welcome back.
@Anonymous 7:33 - GOBAG can also be used with expectant mothers, or those who have to travel for work often with little advanced warning.
Agree this was a lot of challenge and a lot of fun. In addition to observations already made by @Rex and others: I was sure on reading the ? clue for STEADY GIG that the answer would relate to Nice in France—held me back until the last 3 letters were in from crosses. Nice (!) to then encounter the clue for ETRE.
Cassowary and corruscate in clues took me to the (online) dictionary (Hey Nancy—is that cheating?) and back to the Maleska era. Even then I was stuck with emus in the NW for a long time.
BTW—if you ever notice unusual corruscation in the pupil of an infant or toddler’s eye, get that child to an ophthalmologist STAT—it could signify the presence of retinoblastoma, a rare malignant tumor that typically develops before age 3 years.
@A -- Today's Universal puzzle was a collab with Will Nediger. My puzzle with Lewis lies somewhere in the great uncharted Future and will appear in the LAT.
I’m still struggling with SPECS. I guess it is my lack of understanding of crossword construction but why 72 answers when there are 110? I’m sure I will feel stupid when someone kindly educates me!
Will someone please help with SPECS as applied to 72 answers when there are 110 in the puzzle? What obvious fact am I missing?
Man, this was hard. Thought Southside would fill the blog with rants. Nope. He even thought a random foreign word was a fine entry.
@Rabbit26 10:51 and 10:47 - how are you getting 110 answers? There are 72 words that answer the clues. Keep in mind that some numbers (1 for example) have both an across answer and a down answer, and some numbers (2 for example) have only a down answer. The number on the last clue is not really related to the total number of answers.
SPECS is for specifications - this puzzle has 72 answers and 35 black squares, which is a specification. There is probably a better clue for this answer, but it words if we take the clue as a hint at the answer and not necessarily a perfect match.
Pleasingly resistant, fun to figure out. Like others here, I found the challenge not so much in the entries but in the clues, many of which left me with a blank stare, starting with 1A's "This and that" (my word of the day was VAGUE, in honor of all the "fuzzy" cluing). It took me quite a few circuits of the grid to get every square. Favorites: TEMPT FATE, BABY GATES.
Surprise of the day: that coruscates means "GLINT." I'd been sure that "coruscating" meant "scathing." An Internet search revealed that I wasn't alone in assuming it was sort of a blend of "excoriating" + "corrosive." Several language usage blogs lamented the increasing appearance of phrases like (the incorrect) "coruscating criticism" and made a plea for maintaining the original meaning.
Help from previous puzzles, not: GAY ICONS. I don't know why I can never remember this as a possibility. Do-over: OurS before ONE'S. No idea: KATE, ERIN, HOIST, TUXEDO CAT.
@amyyanni - I thought of T.S. Eliot, too :)
@Poggius - Thank you for the lore about the Vatican Library.
Bad news: a big dnf. Good news: I discovered the check word option and was able to solve the remaining 15% of the puzzle without resorting to google, which I am loathe to do. Still very satisfying. I am the newest member of the Check Republic. Very good puzzle.
Sorry if this ends up being a repeat, but my first post today seems to be lost in the ether.
This was the best Friday puzzle of the week! Also the best Friday puzzle of the month!
Seriously though - wonderful puzzle. Great cluing and great answers. Some good misdirection. I had lots of write-overs in the solve, and lots of fun. There definitely was crunch today. I cannot disagree with others who felt this was Saturday level. Very few gimme answers today. Even the short fill was solid. One of my favorite recent puzzles - hard but fair.
My favorite clues today were for OUSTER and BRAT. Coruscates is a new word to me
@Elaine 9:21 - did you misread "black" in the clue for "blank"?
Thank you, Rex, for using the word “challenging” in your review. I found this hard – I usually finish the puzzle before bed, but last night I had to leave it two-thirds done and sleep on it. (Not literally – my tablet would make a crap pillow.) The blank spaces were the central diagonal area and most of the SW corner. Like Rex, I forgot the meaning of “coruscates” and was thinking “rusts” or “deteriorates” (Hi, @Nancy) – getting confused with “corrodes”, I guess. When I figured out the chip-maker was LAYS, I suddenly thought “GLINTS!” I’d had a mental block on the first part of BABY GATES, thinking “child”, “toddler”, so the Y from LAYS was a boon, and I wrapped up the descending diagonal pretty quickly. That left the SW which, although I didn’t know it, featured a glaring error (that others made, too), WORks for WORLD. I had another error, too, TSA for MTA at 52D (Hi, @Roo) – not sure what I was thinking there. Those two goofs kept me from seeing key across and down answers. But when I finally got RODEO, I realized the Marin County seat had to be San RAFAEL, and that no word could start with FK, so WORks, which had seemed so right, had to go. Then getting FLOP (ironically, if that’s a correct usage) led me to completing the puzzle. Because of my TSA mistake, I thought at one point that “Later, dude!” was going to end in “to GO” and “Reverent” was going to end with “soUL.” Missteps really compound in this avocation of ours.
@Gio (2:15 PM, yesterday)
I realized in a more careful reading of the comments last night that I’d left you out of my mini-orgy of limerick-writing and that, as a convalescent, you were “sorely” in need of one. So, to atone:
Gio’s grand nissen fundoplication
Seems to merit a standing ovation
Not a Japanese car
But a surgical star
It’s a hernia-patient’s salvation.
SB: yd pg -4 (One I didn’t know, one I was thinking was only a proper noun, and the other two I should have got)
@TTrimble (last night) The African word you mention was totally unknown to me, but was the product of tapping a bunch of letters in frustration and finding, to my utter amazement, that they spelled a word! I’m hoping the whole incident will help me to remember it.
@Nancy: Well, you and Will have done it again! TOP NOTCH, as you two PROs always TEND to be, and quite a fun ROMP. Do you think you could arrange to do that every Friday? LOL Just kidding - it wouldn’t have to always be on Friday. Once a week would suffice.
Hey ROO! You made BOTH puzzles today - Claire’s and Nancy’s. What could be IFFIER than that?
This was a brilliant puzzle but I DNF’d at TUXEDOCAT/DIXIE. @Nancy said she was “spatially challenged” yesterday and I have decided I am “vertically challenged” because I SHOULD have been able to get that.
My only “nit” is the fact that I don’t think of empanadas as TAPAS. I could be dead wrong on that but, to me, they are too substantial to be considered an appetizer or a “small plate.” Since I was with @Z with JOKE before TYKE, I got hung up for a bit before I relented to TAPAS.
I’m off to work @Nancy’s puzzle!
Synonyms for CORUSCATES (M-W)
flames, flashes, glances, gleams, glimmers, glints, glistens, glisters, glitters, lusters (or lustres), scintillates, shimmers, spangles, sparkles, twinkles, winkles, winks
___
td pg -11 (timed out)
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Much too, too opaque to be fun. Kind of sadistic, in fact. Doing it in software might make the process more amenable, given infinite re-tries. On paper, pen or pencil? Only if you have infinite photocopies to re-transcribe as you black out (or tear up) squares. Otherwise, you have to do it in your head, then just write it all out. How many hands up for having the ability? Not mine, fur shur.
GO BAG. not that I watch such all that often, but isn't that standard gear on 'Criminal Minds' and 'NCIS' and such teeVee shows? occasionally used on 'Air Disasters' as well, and that's, more or less, IRL.
Oh! That was Nancy/Will puzzle. Oops. The opinion stands.
@Nancy - thanks for the puzzle. Very enjoyable. Good theme, and you are right - covering up the title added to the challenge
Not a fan of the software, as I kept writing over answers and could not easily change from across to down with a keystroke, but that is not your issue.
@Nancy and Will's puzzle is the perfect chaser to today's NYT puzzle. The theme is clever and the puzzle goes down smooth as silk, probably at a Tuesday level. Do it! Just Google "Universal Crossword".
Just wow…no…make that WOW! Clair is a Crossworld gem.
No GLINTS for CORUSCATES here & no shame in looking it up. As many others have noted GWEN & TUXEDO CAT were first and only first pass entries. Like @Nancy I wanted a sin before my LOAN was forgiven. Now I can look forward to seeing her co-constructor grid👍🏼
Wow - this was hard!
I won't forget you Claire!
After I finish the puzzle, I go over each clue and write a red plus sign next to each one with a clever clue, or which leads to an unusual word, or which teaches me something. One which tickles me in some way. Early in the week there are fewer than five. Late in the week there are around ten. Today there were 22! The most that I can remember.
Jeff Chen complained that it was too hard for Friday. It took him twice his normal time.
I needed The Closer. She gave me TEMPTFATE. That got me over the hump.
.
They haven't been filled in yet.
@webwinger (10:33) Thanks for that warning about retinoblastoma. I have a little nine month old grand nephew so that’s good info to know.
@Lewis (11:49) “The perfect chaser” is the perfect description. Exactly my thoughts but I wasn’t clever enough to put it into the right words.
@Z at 9:04, and Joaquin, I believe you missed the point. If one scrambled S-A-L-T, there would be no issue. Also, if one scrambled the elements, there would be no issue. It’s the scrambling of the letters in the abbreviation of the elements themselves that doesn’t work, in my opinion. But the point was rally that Rex will eviscerate a theme for silly reasons (“Ayers”, anyone?) but gives this one high praise, when it is quite flawed. No, not a science paper, but can we be consistent at least.
Crafty TOP NOTCH puzzle full of tricks and treats.
The last part to fall for me was WORLD instead of WORKS which gave me FLOP instead of SKOP and DEAD SET instead of DEASSET. I go into this DAY feeling like a smarter person.
Born & raised in OHIO, I had no trouble with the NW. Then around the other 3 corners, ending in the SW, fixing my only writeover where I had the WORKS. Finally the center, where I added a LAPIS BAGEL from a TAPAS bar to my GOBAG.
How about San Diego county?
My favorite posts this morning.
kitshef (7:19)
Shirley F (8:25)
Liveprof (9:43)
Poggius (9:48)
@Nancy - well done. Comfortably elegant theme - clean fill. I especially liked 4d.
@Joaquin 8:53. I think the necessary corollary to the dictum should be that the clue/hint may not be factually incorrect. For example:
Clue: First man to walk on the moon
Answer: BUZZ ALDRIN
People will fill in the answer, so in that sense the clue has worked, but it is still not an acceptable clue due to the factual inaccuracy.
The reason specialized clues are particularly prone to complaints is that some people really know the subjects. They therefore know that the answer that a layman (or NYTXW editor) might think is OK is factually incorrect. Southside Johnny points to science and math, but it happens all the time with music, sailing, the law, military terminology etc. etc.
@Nancy (and Will, if he lurks). Wonderful puzzle.
Learned TUXEDO CAT today. 😽
Hands up for 'a sin' before LOAN.
Love the OHIO riddle. Had totally forgotten it.
Thx @Nancy & Will, for the fun Universal puz. Enjoyed it very much! :)
___
Thx to all the SB sharers! :)
td pg -3*
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
I really enjoy a puzzle like this, where I really struggle, but eventually finish. I was glad not to come here and see it rated Easy by Rex and others. It took me about my average for Friday, about 40 to 45 minutes. I got stuck everywhere. The last thing was BAGEL, GOBAG, GLINT.
I had POP ICON for a long time, which slowed me down.
I don't understand why I can't seem to finish the Friday and Saturday puzzles in the archives. I give up after 15 or 20 minutes, whereas the daily puzzles, I force myself to finish with no cheating. I finish all the current puzzles, eventually, but the archive ones I suck at. I'm wondering if they've gotten easier? I'm stuck at the puzzles from 2012 to 2014 and earlier. I think it might be mental. Often in a daily puzzle, I have only 3 words after the first pass, and barely anything after 20 minutes. But I always have the attitude that I'm gonna get it done.
After I finish one like today's, I get inspired and hit the archives...and then I fail to finish and Check Puzzle or just erase the whole thing and quit.
Thanks to @Carola for explaining why I thought "coruscates" was akin to "reams out" or "chastises". Once GLINTS slid into place, I tried to remember what word I was actually thinking of. Excoriates is probably the one.
I thought a cassowary might be a sea bird, that perhaps "tern" had turned up again in the grid. Once RHEA arrived, I got a vague image of a cassowary though now Googling, I did not have the LAPIS neck in my mental image.
LAPIS lazuli, my favorite blue!
Claire Rimkus, this is my favorite kind of solve - clever and difficult. Thanks!
Just the right challenge level for me today. Almost missed the end (which was right in the middle of the puzzle) when I put "JOKE" instead of "TYKE" for "kid."
2 things: 1) Familiar with Quintana Roo though have never been there, but my wife, a native of Mexico City who is a dual citizen, has, and has described its charms to me. This was also the name of the adoptive daughter of writers Joan Didion and the late John Gregory Dunne (Quintana Roo Dunne) who unfortunately died young (Didion has written movingly about the deaths of both her husband and daughter within a couple of years of one another). 2) Some tuxedo cats, including Anita, one of our three, are gray with white chests rather than black-and-white.
5A is the second across entry not the fifth etc.etc.
Keith D,
Rex was perfectly consistent. He liked it, has no animus against teh constructor so he praised it.
Everyone on this board knows if Bruce Haight had construced the puzzle, OFL would'be evisrated it.
Despite his claims, Rex has no coherent set of standards, merely preferences. And long time reders of this blog know that even they have changed over the years.
@Nancy-Very much enjoyed your puzzle--thanks for the fun (thank Will too!).
Just realized I'd never finished the November 13th puzzle so I went back and solved it.😀😀 However, I have an issue with 4-Down ("Reading, for one"), whose answer was Railroad. When I saw the clue, my brain naturally thought of the gerund "reading," like reading a book, and I couldn't get the answer for a long time. Why? Because I rode the Reading railroad every day growing up in Philly and I know it's pronounced Redding. I'm sure a lot of Monopoly players grew up pronouncing Reading Railroad like the gerund "reading" and I'm wondering if the puzzle constructor also grew up with this misconception? It seems like it. Anyway, for those who don't know, it's pronounced like the town in England, not like the gerund form of the verb To Read 🤩🤩🤩
I didn't think I'd have to post this again so soon.
Too many Irish names in the puzzle. Upton O'Good, Tuxed O'Cat, Adi O'Samigo – we're supposed to know who these people are?
R. O'Deo
The "width" of a flag is called HOIST. The "length" of a flag is called FLY.
HOIST does not refer to height in this case. The clue is "vertical dimension".
A good puzzle yet I am unclear on the meaning of 6 Down - specs. Anyone else know about this answer?
Great Puzzle, thanks Claire! Gave my son and me a terrific Friday PM workout. No googling. Tough, thoughtful cluing but with enough toeholds to get a grip in each part of the puzzle. Enjoyed TEMPTING FATE as I RESPECTFULly got a SECONDWIND, though i HAD NO IDEA. Claire could find this crossword thing to become a STEADY GIG! Thanks for a great puzzle! --Rick
@Shirley F Your story about the Cassowary was terrifying! I can't even imagine what your friends went through. Bears have been known in the county adjacent to mine to break into cars to get the groceries, go swimming in a pool, or occasionally break into a home through the screen door. They can be aggressive at times as well. But compared to the bird in your story, the local bears seem pretty docile!
As for the puzzle, I found it tough but I felt a true sense of accomplishment when I finished it correctly.
Enjoy the weekend everyone!
I know you're the greatest and most outspoken ally who's ever lived but there's literally no way GAY ICONS "ushered you into that corner" when POP ICONS or POP DIVAS were way more obvious
How Many Answers Are There?
Hardest Method:
Count the clues.
The Not Quite As Hard Method:
Start with the highest across clue number than add all the answers squares that begin both an across and down clue. For today that’s 58 then add 14 (1, 5, 11, 23, 25, 27, 29, 35, 39, 41, 42, 45, 46, and 47), 58+14=72.
The Easy Method:
Check xwordinfo.com
The Wrong Method
Add the highest number of the across and down clues (52+58=110)
@Anon2:24 - Thank you! I did not know that usage and it wasn’t listed in Merriam-Webster online. But I see it now that I googled both terms together. And now I see my first take on the clue was correct.
@Anon2:57 - I had the G from GIFS and immediately plunked down GAY ICONS. I think between Barbara Streisand, Lady Gaga, Madonna, and Mariah Carey you’ve got the full set of stereotypical GAY ICONS, people almost infamously known as GAY ICONS, almost to the point where I wondered if Rex would call out how stereotyping the clue is (none of the gay people I know well like any of those artists).
@Beezer - Not so much “wrong” as needing to go to more bars and TAPAS restaurants. An empanada can be a small plate or a full meal, depending on the number and presentation. I’ve definitely seen them on small plate menus. I’m always vaguely amused because I’ve also seen the same basic concept by many different names, “pasties” being common in northern Michigan, plus meat pies, spanakopita, pierogi, and others I’m probably forgetting. My home town version was a sausage link wrapped and baked in a dough very similar to empanada dough and called a “pig in a blanket,” a name that elsewhere is often sausage wrapped in a pancake. Okay, now I’m hungry and I just had lunch.
On the trivia question I make a distinction between PPP and stuff like RHEA, even though both are “trivia,” that is factoids that a solver may or may not know. A big part of my reason for disliking PPP more is fame is fleeting. The importance of knowing RHEA may not be great, but will be roughly the same 20 years ago as it is today as it will be 20 years from now. But Madonna’s standing as a GAY ICON is already past its best by date. TWA (from a different puzzle I just did) played a major role in 2001: A Space Odyssey but ceased to exist in 2001.
But, whatever. My overall suspicion is still that the amount of “trivia” in the NYTX is relatively constant over all of Shortz’s tenure as editor and all that varies is how much of it is in our wheelhouse.
*yesterday spoiler alert*
@kitshef12:46 - Where the experts err is they get locked in on one way of thinking about things and then refuse to admit that the only issue is they were fooled. @Keith D’s insistence that reordering the chemical symbol for salt is somehow different than reordering the word “salt” is just the latest example. Its also prototypical in that when we see these plaints it is only because it applies to someone’s area of expertise and when the same sort of misdirection is applied in a different area we hear nary a peep.
I will criticize Shortz and team on many things, but it is nearly always the case that when some expert asserts that something in the puzzle is “wrong” all that has happened is their own expertise has gotten in the way of understanding the clue, not that there is some editing error, and almost never is there an actual factual error.
Rex’s time claims are bull. Check out how long he takes when he streams with a partner
Gordon Ramsay was asked once how he felt about being included as a GAY ICON in one of the LGBT+++ publications in Great Britain. He said he was cool with it although somewhat troubled by the fact that he keeps moving up the list each year.
Re: the word of the day. Joan Didion's daughter was named Quintana Roo. Didion and her husband John Gregory Dunne saw the name on a map and liked it. Quintana died tragically at 39 only a year after her father died. Didion wrote memoirs about both.
Warm thanks for their nice comments to @Lewis (and also for the helpful plug on Wordplay); @A; @Whatsername; @JD; @Trey; @Son Volt; @kitshef; @pabloinnh and @bocamp. To @Trey I'd add: you're preaching to the choir when you complain about the frustrations of online solving. I refuse to do it at all -- I find the entire process just too unpleasant. So I appreciate your soldiering through the assorted aggravations and doing our puzzle anyway.
To everyone else: after today's bear in the NYT, I'm amazed that anyone had any energy left for a second puzzle :)
@webwinger (10:33) -- Of course it's cheating. But it's a less "cheat-y" kind of cheating than looking answers up. And I do believe that those of us who try to cheat as *scrupulously* and as *conscientiously* as we possibly can (and then only when cheating becomes completely unavoidable) deserve a special place in the pantheon of solvers.
No news is good news, but new knees are, I hope. Lying in hospital 5 hours post-surgery and feeling pretty decent. Due to the drugs some bloating I’m high on each end and round in the middle.
Had to pop in to say that I loved both this puzzle and the Nancy/Will in Universal. Thanks to all.
@Joe DiPinto 2:18. Don’t give short shrift to Topn O’Tch, H.O’Ist, B. O’Nks, G. O’Bag, L. O’An, W. O’Rld and Gayic O’Ns.
Claire, if you're reading this I loved this puzzle. Great job!
In brief, this was the the type of crossword challenge I've been savoring for a couple of weeks now but which hadn't been served up. (Thanks Claire!)
Like many, I zipped through most of the puzzle, but was hung up on the 9 center squares ("job" vs GIG really threw a monkey wrench into the solve), and the TEMPTFATE/TONES/IFFIER comb (TONES? If you must.) Worked it out in the end, quadrupling my initial sprint time.
@Z
Hey, nice name for a plate of some sort at Z's Placebo and Tentacle:
The Actual Factual
Another tasty item could be a Corned beef Reuben, The Rye Rollercoaster
We need to get a menu and list of entertainment. Get on it!
RooMonster Might Have To Move To NY Guy
Good news!!!
I emailed @Frantic and she's fine; just busy. She hopes to be back soon.
@Stevied 330pm
You have no idea. But what time claims? He mostly quit telling us. He found going full speed made him like or dislike things in the puzzle because their effect on his speed rather than their contribution to the puzzle. Criticize that if you like. But how could you possibly know even when he always included his alleged times?
So who is the bullshitter here? I believe you believe or at least want to.
TUXEDOCAT. Such a good friend. That whole section was going nowhere until I saw my buddy. She was the happiest and most contented cat I ever had right up to the day she died.
A tough and fun friday. Great clues. That BOTH BRAT, helluva one two punch. Or I guess one one punch. I got the longs fairly quickly in the NE (dow and the SW. Everything else was a down and dirty bloody struggle. Lost some. Won some.
When the experts err…. Let that sink in for a minute. 🙄
Thanks for your two cents z
Remember z was the guy telling you not to mask up 16 months ago because.
Wrahh grbbble, grabblw, fit of mask, improper wrrbaggke .k
@pabloinnh
Very glad to hear about Theo. Pat him for me.
@Nancy
Enjoyed your puzzle, particularly 4D (hey, like @Son Volt). Fun theme.
Watching TCM—- The Strange Loves of Martha Ivers— just watched Van Heflin carry Kirk Douglas onto a divan.
I say this is the perfect metaphor for the Z Rex relationship
@Egs – well I only complained about the names that really bothered me. The others are just typical Irish-name crosswordese.
Glad you're doing well post-surgery. Also, good vibes to @Gio and @puzzlehoarder in your recoveries. I may need to be getting a "procedure" done soon.
@Nancy, I enjoyed your puzzle today a lot. A toast!
@JC66 (6:45 PM)
Good news, indeed! Thx for sharing. 👍
___
td pg -1*
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
I'm dim-witted, I guess, but certainly learned a few things. Major DNF, and only got to Genius on SB.
Thank you @JC66 for the good news.
@Nancy
Nice puzzle. I do not know if they have day-related difficulty levels but I found it to be a pleasant romp that left me happy and unscuffed. Early week easy by standards here. Even though I avoided seeing the title. The ocean answer and the reveal were my faves. Except of course where you got me and ROO together. If we ever do, our first drink will be a toast to you for that even though I assume that was Will.
Yeah solving there on line on a phone was a pain. Much easier on the NYTCWAPP. And on Thursday there was no problem. Just type the N, A, C, L in the proper order. No mess at all.
Anyhow nice work.
@JC66: Thank you for reporting on Frantic. I had emailed her a few days ago and just got a response today. I was just coming here to do the same but glad you were one step ahead of me. Great minds.
OMG -- You have all GOT to see @Joe Dipinto's 7:51 link, directed to and at me. It is SO funny!!!!
At first I'm thinking that this has to be just about the silliest video I've ever seen. But as it went on, I'm thinking maybe it was very selectively chosen. Maybe it was being oh-so-carefully aimed at my Luddite, technophobic, gadget-hating head.
What fun! Thanks, Joe!!!
@egs (5:23)-- That's incredibly good early news about your surgery. I'm impressed, amazed, and very happy it went so well.
@albatross (9:18) -- Thanks so much. I can tell you that Will and I clued the puzzle the same way we clue all our puzzles: we try to make our clues challenging. We're usually thinking Thursday level -- especially when it's a Thursday-type puzzle. Lewis emailed me today to say that Universal Crosswords always brings clues down to a Tuesday level, whatever the day of the week. I didn't notice because 1) I didn't try to do the puzzle online and therefore never looked at the cluing and 2) I can't find the original clues for this puzzle in my email file (well, actually it's not a file, which is primarily the problem). It would take me hours to try to scare up enough info to make the comparison-- and then, if the "dumbing down" were too great, it would just make me unhappy. But I believe Lewis knows from his own experience that this is what happens.
So I imagine the puzzle was easier than Will and I planned. I hope it wasn't too easy and tthat it provided enough resistance to keep it interesting.
Anon @9:33 here again. Thank you everybody for sharing your thoughts about trivia. My sense is that today's puzzle have a lot more evanescent slang (eg, PWN) than before. I wonder whether that is because it used to be that the NYT would want to collect the puzzles later in books to sell, so the puzzles have to be solvable years later, but that market may have dried up. I don't think a solver in 2030 is going to look at PWN and be too happy it's in the puzzle.
@Nancy, if you are still here – no, there was no "hidden message" in the fact that I chose that video. I happened across it while I was looking for a clip of audience members at the Rocky Horror Picture Show flinging toast slices into the air when "A toast!" is called for onscreen. I couldn't find that, but I thought this one was pretty funny so I posted it instead.
Nice puzzle, except for "STEADYGIG" as an answer to "Nice position to be in?" Misleading. The word "position" suggests permanence, as confirmed by "steady." A gig is more often temporary. Would you say a musician in a traveling band is in a position?
I read "A nice position to be in?" clued with a ? as a statement that having a *steady* gig might not be a nice position for all. Some might feel encumbered by such employment despite the more accepted perception of a full-time or "regular" job as desirable.
Alternative clue for 29A. “Bill and Melinda’s newborn child”
Again the newspaper wrongly gives credit to another constructor. This time it’s Jake Halpering instead of what it should be - i.e. Claire Rimkus.
In The Sun the constructor is listed as Claire Rimkus. Either way we got a good one. I was apprehensive OFF would come out with an "Easy" rating, in which case I was prepared to do bodily harm. But no, he called it medium-challenging--though perhaps I'd leave the "medium" out of it.
OFF did not even mention the two hangups that very nearly cost me the solve:
1. SECONDWave instead of WIND. Spent a while getting out of that NE corner.
2. The WORks, not the WORLD. The works seemed so natural, so in-the-language, I just couldn't get rid of it. HAdNOIDEA why that area wouldn't jell. And here one of the IFFIER clues helped block my way: "reverent" connotes religious overtones and doesn't really lead to RESPECTFUL. It's a fair (ish) clue, I guess, but there were a few like that, not quite hitting the mark.
Also NOIDEA there was such a thing as a TUXEDOCAT. As for the cup, I kept thinking DAVIS, but that wouldn't work either. This was a five-star toughie, with clues that were mostly either "WTF is that?" or "That could be ANYTHING." Triumph points cascade in. KATE Mara is a fine DOD. Eagle.
STEADY ITCH
Every SECOND you TEMPTFATE, SURE DEADSET that you should,
ASIFICARE who you date, KATE, you’re UPTONOGOOD.
--- DIXIE GATES
I wasn’t having much trouble until my approach to the SW got interrupted with a STEADYjob before GIG, but then having ___GO inplace for 50a I filled in ‘ivegottaGO’. Talk about inkfest getting to ADIOSAMIGO.
I SECOND KATE Mara.
ADIOSAMIGOs.
Q: What’s black and white and tough all over?
A: This puzzle.
Neither of my current two are TUXEDOCATs, but I've had some in the past. They don't have to rent their suits - class acts, all.
This, too, was a class act - go puzzle, go!
Diana, LIW
The WORLD is not enough.
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