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Exile of 1302 / FRI 2-25-22 / Alternative to a blind in poker / Some military choppers / 1980s sitcom title role for Jane Curtin / Home of Mount Aconcagua / One leader of the Army of the Potomac / Counterpart to projections, in accounting / Classic 1942 film based on a book subtitled "A Life in the Woods" / Western wildflower named for its distinctive shape / Italian place whose name comes from a Greek word meaning I burn / Practiced sedulously / Chief inspiration for the Mannerist style of art
Friday, February 25, 2022
Constructor: Damon Gulczynski
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
Word of the Day: PILAU (48D: Rice dish) —
Pilau (UK spelling) or pilaf (US spelling) is a rice dish (or in some regions, a wheat dish) of South Asian, Central Asian and Middle Eastern origin. The recipe usually involves cooking the rice soaked in stock or broth, adding meat, spices, and other ingredients such as vegetables, and employing some technique for achieving cooked grains that do not adhere. (wikipedia)
• • •
The long answers in this grid were mostly delightful. I found much of it tough because either the cluing wasn't on my wavelength or, in one notable case, I totally misread the clue. Let's start with the misread clue: I got IQS instantly (1A: Brightness measures) and immediately went for the "Q" answer, thinking, "well, it's a 'Q' answer, so I'm going to get it immediately!" And when I saw [One represented by blue-and-white flag...] I thought "Oh, that's the trans flag ... isn't it? ... well, at any rate, it's something QUEER, so ... just write that in ... QUEER? Hmmm ... not working ... ooh, what about that other meaning of "Q" in LGBTQ+: Questioning! Is it QUESTIONER ... nope, doesn't fit." Eventually I got QUÉBÉCOIS from crosses and after *that* I eventually went back and saw that I had never finished reading the clue, which made references to fleur-de-lis and everything! Total giveaway. But I just leapt from "Q" to "colored flags" to ... well, my doom.
["Dynasty!"]
[Warning: this delightful song contains profanity]
Trivia cluing just missed me today. The "BAMBI" clue felt hard, since there's nothing in the clue about a deer or animation (23D: Classic 1942 film based on a book subtitled "A Life in the Woods"), and the MICHELANGELO clue felt even harder, largely because I (apparently) have no idea what the "Mannerist style of art" is. Sounds really modern to me, so even after I got the MICHEL part I just assumed that was some French guy's first name. No idea Hawaiian was an airline, so even after getting AIR, I was baffled by 45A: Hawaiian, e.g. (AIRLINE). Hardest ANTE clue I've ever had because, as I've said many times, poker lingo, barf (27A: Alternative to a blind, in poker). Trivia on top of trivia crossing (medical) trivia in the NE, so that slowed me down a bunch too. I know all those answers (ANDES MEADE EDEMA) but could not see them as clued. Not easily anyway. But I had a much easier time, and was much more delighted by, the longer stuff. "BUT THAT'S JUST ME!" "WILL YOU BE QUIET!" (I'm a quiet junkie, so this exasperated cry meant a lot to me). The "Q" down here did not lead me astray, as the NW "Q" did. Quite the Qontrary, I went "WILL YOU BE QUIET!" to JE NE SAIS QUOI in an instant, bam bam. Thank you, "Q." That was my one big moment of Friday "whoosh," and I was grateful for it.
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138 comments:
I'm always amazed at how little this PhD in Lit knows about art. It must be a much less interdisciplinary world than is art history.
Challenging. WOEs and bear traps in every quadrant except the small NW and SE. I know "JE NE SAIS QUOI" as a phrase, but the correct spelling is beyond my meager French knowledge. can't and WoN'T before WILL YOU BE QUIET. Was Jane Curtin in ALIcE? The wildflower at 36D was a WOE and would have been inferable were it not for my other problems in the SW. Didn't know the composer at 46D, didn't know enough of DANTE's BIO to know he was exiled at 11D. Knew EDEMA but didn't know about Dropsy. Had to dig deep in the memory banks for the cosmetic name at 27D.
I can't be the only one who thought of THIS recently.
Thx Damon; just what the DOC ordered for a Fri. puz! :)
Easy-med.
Pretty smooth solve. No major holdups.
NW & NorCal went right in.
Pilaf before PILAU.
Unknowns: LAI, ALLIE, ACTUALS, STAR LILY; they all fell into place via fair crosses.
Enjoyable and satisfying trip.
🙏 for Ukraine.
___
td pg: 7:53 / W: (in progress; nada on first two words)
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
The New Yorker recently ran an article about Bambi the book. Seems both the book and its author were very, very famous until the movie completely eclipsed them. Having read that article, the clue felt like a gimme.
The New Yorker recently ran an article about Bambi the book. Seems both the book and its author were very famous until the movie completely eclipsed them. Having read the article, this clue felt like a gimme.
biden before POTUS, “confirmed” by kick before BOAT, was one sticky area for me. The other was PILAU, which I did not know at all (and wanted PILAf), crossing HUEYS, which sits somewhere in the dark recesses of my brain and fortunately chose to peek its nose out today.
I’ll start with what I liked. I liked the little NW square – it’s where I usually start – and what I liked about it was that I couldn’t fill a single box in, which made me think, “Ah. Good. A battle!” A hard-won battle in crosswords, to me, with its fist pump and glow of satisfaction, is such a sweet pleasure. And during the solving struggle, as I’m aargh!-ing, scratching, and clawing, I’m also – and I find the amazing – having the feeling of, “Man, I’m loving this!”
I also liked the simple cross of BOAT and CANOE, not to mention the inclusion of MOI and KOI, even though they don’t rhyme. Also, the solve unwound Friday-perfect: Steady resistance steadily overcome, spiced by a couple of really knotty spots.
That’s what I liked. Here’s what I really liked: BUT THAT’S JUST ME, SCATMAN (because SCATMAN), STAR LILY (which rolls off the tongue so sweetly and evokes beautiful images), JE NE SAIS QUOI (Quelle phrase fantastique!), and ALONE TIME. These answers were roses to smell along the journey.
So, Damon, you gave me a package that I savored. What a terrific puzzle – thank you!
My gut told me to write PILAF, I got stuck and hit the cheater-auto-check, and couldn't believe it was almost right. Little did I know I was also a patriot.
I learned PILAU from the NYTXWP sometime in the last millennium.
48-down said more about Afghanistan's food supply than entire television news networks
Started this one last night and turned out the lights with the NW and SW corners mostly empty. Realized a key element in the NW as I was falling asleep (QUEBECOIS). Finished up the NW quickly this morning, and the SW came together when I realized that "Strip that's been mowed," 47D was not SWAle, but SWATH.
But I didn't get the happy music, and Rex's first paragraph explains why! I don't know a HUEY from a B-52, but I thought the rice dish surely ended in "F". But I was able to correct it with PILAU on my first try.
And even though that SW corner gave me great grief, it also gave me great diagonal delight! Check it out: two 5 letter Hidden Diagonal Words cross each other in perfect symmetry, sharing the letter L. You've got SILLS (which might be clued, "Bubbles" to her fans) crossing ALLAH (which might be clued, "Jehovah" to a Muslim). It's the first time I've seen two diagonal words of that length cross each other in such elegant style.
This should have been much easier than it was for me, even with the PPP clues I didn't know. I had swivel before spiral and no knowledge of star lily. Loved the long answers but the cluing just evaded me today.
Very interesting (and somewhat amusing) to see Rex go bonkers over PILAU, which as far as foreign/made-up words go, is about as minimally egregious as can be, lol. Let’s just say . . . I can certainly empathize with him on that one.
Seemed like they dug really deep into the trivia bag on some of the stuff like MEADE - the clue just said leader, I don’t know if the dude was even a general (wouldn’t that be Washington - or was he the Delaware guy?). Anyway, good one for the history buffs. Similarly, the only DANTE that I know of his the inferno one - so if this one is/was real, I never heard of him. Add EDEMA over there and that corner was pretty brutal.
I’m mildly surprised we didn’t at least get a mini-screed from OFL re the inappropriateness of IQ tests v.v. “brightness”. I’m guessing some others may chime in here, though it does seem a little weird that Rex missed such a gimmie opportunity to enlighten us regarding the once again self-evident social, racial, misogynistic and right-wing biases inherent in the NYT puzzle content.
You say pilau, I say Palau, let’s call the whole thing off.
Kathryn Schulz wrote that terrific New Yorker piece that made BAMBI a gimme. Just finished her beautiful and profound book “Lost and Found.” Highly recommended!
Good thing the clue wasnt about The Pilau Guy. That would’ve got Rex in a lather.
You don't have to be British to be familiar with PILAU, you just have to have been to an Indian restaurant. Jeesh.
Yeah, I had PILAf and wouldn’t take out the F, which gave me HfEYS, which yeah, didn’t look right, but with what I know about military hardware, it could have been perfectly fine. So pffft. I’ve loved rice pilaf my whole life, and while, yeah, I guess I’ve heard of PILAU, I really don’t think I was going to come up with it, even though, in retrospect, I guess I’ve heard of HUEYS. PILAf notwithstanding, I really enjoyed the puzzle.
Oh, and my wife returned to now-very-snowy New England from Maui on Hawaiian Air yesterday, so that was cool to see, and I picked her up — no fooling — in Natick.
Like Rex, the cluing was not on my wavelength today. Of course, finding myself unfocused because of Ukraine invasion. 🙏🇺🇦
I understand poker's not your thing, Rex, and you are free to have a physical reaction to its reference as you like.
That said, it is not the "bro" game you think it is - it is highly inductive and shares many elements of puzzle-solving.
So while poker may not be for everybody, I think calling it "barf"-worthy is a bit unfair.
I suspect there are more Rex fans (like me!) who also play poker than you may realize!
This was an average Friday solve which would have been easy if it weren't for the spelling issues of QUEBECOIS and JENESAISQUOI. I had a NEWSTAND/NEWSDESK write over simply because I'm not good at spelling so those two entries were cruel and unusual.
The pilaf vs PILAU thing wasn't an issue for me. I really wanted SWIVEL for 47A because the clue reminded me of the one we had for SWIVEL CHAIR recently. The W gave me nothing and when PAYEES was the first down to drop in I thought the SW would be a holdout. That EES gives very little leverage. However ALLIE and HUEYS we're gimmies and that section snapped together like most of the puzzle.
PILAU went in from the crosses of course and the funny thing was I never made the connection to pilaf. This is apparently a British spelling and the xwordinfo list shows that it was much more common pre-Shortz.
Sun through Thur were all -0
I'm thinking that DG must be a tenor, because this was right in my range. First guess write-ins included BUTTHATSJUSTME, WILLYOUBEQUIET, and JENESAISQUOIS.
QUEBECOIS went right in too, but it was not a guess, as we have spent lots of time in La Bell Provence. Their license plates bear the motto " Je me souviens", which is French for "I bear a grudge".
CHILE before ANDES and ACTIONS before ACTUALS, but the rest was smooth as a smelt.
Oh, hand up for the PILAF/PILAU corrections, but I did know what a HUEY is, which made me think it had to be PILAU, even if it was something I had never heard, which turned out to be the case.
Thought this was a delightful Friday. Thanks DG, for a Double Ginormous amount of fun.
Barsk,
Well put.
Here's how i would categorize Rex'stake on poker:
STOP LIKING WHAT I DON'T LIKE!
Yep. Staring at that PILAf/HfEYS cross and doing exactly what Rex did, which is more unlikely? A rice dish I don’t know or a military helicopter I don’t know? Well, actually, that’s probably a coin flip. But! H-fEY is way too fairyesque for anything military so I went with HUEYS/PILAU and came to Rex to check. 🎉🎉🎉
I also know (or at least once knew) quite a bit about Mannerism and was completely thrown by the clue. I was thinking maybe some sort of Madonna and Child might be the “chief inspiration,” that is there are lots of Madonnas done in the Mannerist style so maybe Mary is the “chief inspiration?” But an artist that didn’t actually paint or sculpt in that style? That’s like saying Robert Johnson is the “chief inspiration” for Rock and Roll. I got it only after having MICHELANG—- in place and only rolled my eyes a little bit. Yeah, it works, but definitely a late week use of the phrase “chief inspiration.”
@John Shearman - 🤣😂🤣 - Art Historians are just in a different silo. I’ve never seen any suggestion that they are more “interdisciplinary” than any other field of study.
Five letter Army of the Potomac General. Grant or MEADE? Put in the A and waited.
Glowered when I finally got IQS. No, they aren’t actually a “brightness measure.” But we’ve beaten that horse to death before.
Many more precious nanoseconds today than most recent Fridays. Tough for me but enjoyable.
**wordle talk**
wondering if today’s word will lead to dnfs and kvetching. Proud of my par.
Wordle 251 4/6
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I had JEN and I wrote in JE NE SAIS QUOI -- an expression that has a certain je ne sais quois -- without a moment's hesitation. I love that expression and I use it all the time. There's no decent English equivalent. It's my favorite answer in the puzzle.
My favorite clue, however, is the one for NEWS DESK (10D).
Isn't it interesting that so many of our senses are 5-letter words?
When you're my generation, the 5-letter "A" cosmetics name is ARDEN, not AVEDA. I had to correct it.
I also had to change PILAf to PILAU. PILAU sounds more like an island than a rice.
I kept wanting the inspiration for the Mannerist style of art -- a style I know absolutely nothing about -- to be a MICHELin star.
I breezed through the NW, but then the puzzle got much harder. It was engrossing and satisfying to solve and had some very nice fill. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Lewis faked me out this morning. He began his comment with "I'll start with what I liked." Is he going to make history by finishing off with something he didn't like? Of course not. He finished off with what he "really liked."
I've always liked Damon G's puzzles. I may have come across the reason. On Jeff Chen, he posted a link to his blog where he identifies himself as a math nerd.
He cut a SWATH through the sward.
I hope someone will comment about Mannerist art and its connection to MICHELANGELO.
Wonderful puzzle. Patrick Berry quality.
A "blind" in poker ? Huh...Pinochle, yeah, but never heard that word applied to poker.
I guess it's "just me" but I haven't had any fun doing the puzzles this week. Maybe what's going on in the world has put a pall on things.
Segmented grid for a Friday - but a solid puzzle. Agree with Rex on all of the longs especially WILL YOU BE QUIET. Thought MICHELANGELO was a gimme after a few letters. LAI escaped me but fond memories of SCATMAN in just about every popular TV show in the early and mid 70s.
Unless you’ve seen it - I can understand the side eye with PALAU. If you’re further interested - I would suggest any of the numerous East African restaurants on 116th St where it is a staple.
Enjoyable Friday solve.
Hey All !
That little NW corner was a toughie! Add into the ending of SEDUCTION crossing the devious "Who ___?",and much head scratching was had. Had old for MED and aforementioned ISiT for ISNT, so took a bit to sort that out. Actually let out an "Uhhh, really? ISNT! Not ITIS."
Started off slow, but gained steamed first by getting MICHELANGELO off just s few letters. Then, in the bottom, WILL YOU BE QUIET, which enabled JE NE SAIS QUOI (although tentative, as wasn't quite sure of the spelling.) Original thought for WILL YOU BE QUIET was SHUT THE F&@# UP. Har. Too short.
Liked the 5x5 NE and SW corners. Puz leaned slightly French today. Slightly. 🙂
Turned out to be a relatively quick solve for me. Maybe I'm getting GOOD AT these puzzle things.
yd -10, should'ves 5
No F's (ILL BE)
RooMonster
DarrinV
@pabloinnh - I bear a grudge - 🤣😂🤣
@Barsk - it is not the "bro" game you think it is. - 🤣😂🤣 - Poker is quite possibly the single most bro game there is. I’m thinking it is more quintessentially “bro” than even football. I mean, c’mon man. Turn the TV to one of those poker tournaments, any of them, and you’re looking at a quintessentially bro scene. The clothes, the dark glasses, the dialog, …if I needed to explain “bro” to someone totally unfamiliar with the concept having them watch poker in TV would be a quick and simple way to do it. Poker is so bro that it could even be an all women tournament and it would still serve to explain bro-ness.
PILAU is more than just the English spelling of PILAF. It’s a rice dish in and of itself, popular throughout much of the world. Many cultures have their own take on it. I’ve eaten Indian PILAU many, many times here in the US. Tagging it as a English variant would be inappropriate, IMO.
I confidently dropped in Musketeer at 2D, which then got me BECAME, which got me BAMBI, so I was sure it was right. Took me a long time to undo that mistake.
I don't remember Back to the Future. A film from 1985. I had DON not DOC. I just googled AEC. The Wikipedia page is fascinating. Lists about 400 definitions for AEC.
Which one was this clue going for? The general Architecture, Engineering, Construction or something else that replaced the Manhattan Project?
Well, I set a PR on this one. Damon & I have never seen eye to eye, and in this one he just poked my eyes out.
Reading the @Rex & the comments I see some people liked this. That makes me happy for them. I saw @Lewis start off with "I'll start with what I like" and I read further with anticipation, hoping to get to what he didn't like, hoping for some agreement between us. No, he ended up with what he "really liked". I don't see eye to eye with @Lewis either I guess.
To all who find my presence annoying, let me apologize. Sincerely, I'm sorry I exist.
This puzzle had me at LINT. It couldn't do anything wrong after that.
@John Shearman (5:57)
So lovely to see you here (even though I know you died about 20 years ago), given that you wrote the book on Mannerism. Your post caused me to reflect that interdisciplinary study at university was not widespread when Rex got his degree, although it's a mainstay now.
I liked the puzzle, partly for those chatty long acrosses and also for 8(!) of the long downs: QUEBECOIS, SEDUCTION, STAR LILY, SCATMAN, MICHELANGELO, JE NE SAIS QUOI, WIKIPEDIA and ALONE TIME. (My stepson and his wife with their walking, teething, burbling, one-year-old bundle of joy are feeling a lack of that last one, as per the clue.) I had no problem with PILAU -- I don't really know how or why I know that spelling (not a foodie), but when PILAf appears in a puzzle, I always hesitate over the last letter in kealoa fashion, even though I guess most of the time the correct answer is F.
I was sure "Got in a lather" was ShAvED, but the unlikelihood of WIKIV____ saved me. I recognized the Quebec flag from the clue's description, but couldn't account for the extra letters at first. Never knew that meaning of SWATH as an area that's been mowed (just thought it was a large area of, well, something). Had _LLB_ for "Huh!" and wondered how in heck that could be a word. Thought that was a terrific if somewhat long-winded clue for old standby ETNA.
If not for DANTE's banishment from Florence and the end of his political life there we might never have had The Divine Comedy, which he began after his exile. I guess he'd been involved in his share of banishments when he was a member of the ruling party, so those that live by the sword... I'm just glad that his literary leanings eventually won out.
Really joyed this.
I had some wee issues with words that weren't jiving with me:
I love to cook, so does my husband. I asked him (a true blue native of Dear Old England) if he'd heard of rice PILAU. He said "bloody hell." WOT'S THAT?
Didn't know that Western wildflower. (took a million crosses to get it). Had PAY Pal instead of PAYEE and forgot about ALLIE and DOC. They were invited to my bar for free drinks.
No real big deal...The important part is that I finished with a couple of Googles to make sure my spelling was correct....Hi @puzzlehoarder.
I was able to get my happy feet to swing and dip on my table top, so I was clam as a happy.
Got MICHELANGELO off the M. He's my hero. When I was in my art class, I decided to copy a lot of his work in charcoal and ink. They were pretty good. I saved them and years later some friends wanted them. They thought they were originals!...To this day, people don't even know that they are really copies of Michelangelo's work.. Hah...maybe I should sell them. (I wish)
I looked at 9 across and my first thought was Chile. Argentina didn't fit. Ah, no...of course...the ANDES. I've seen the Aconcagua many times. It's majestic; you lose your breath, you drink a lot of cognac.
All the longees I got with practically no brain twisting.... I yelped with glee. Yay me....
Loved this, Damon...but then, I love all of your work.
A tale of two puzzles for me - a romp in the lefthand two-thirds, where lucky guesses at QUEBECOIS and MICHELANGELO opened things up, and a real struggle on the right. But easy or hard, I thought it was all delightful. Terrific Friday.
@Gill I. re: ANDES - I didn't know the name of the mountain, but the answer brought back a memory from decades ago of a once-in-a-lifetime flight from Buenos Aires to Santiago on a brilliant blue sky day. I had a window seat on the right side of the plane, and as we flew over the mountain range, the pilot dipped the wing, bringing into view the entire expanse of the cordillera as far north as the eye could see, an ocean of white peaks. As you wrote, "It's majestic; you lose your breath." Unforgettable.
Challenging cluing today but I made it. U in PILAU was the fix that activated the happy music. I got a smile from LINT and that was about it. The long French spellings had to be achieved through crosses, though I knew the phrase and province.
WILLYOUBEQUIET slowed me down for a bit because I had sPCS and OsBEQUIET. Also I didn’t know ALLIE or STARLILY, so that SW corner was a puzzle.
But wow, this :
Wordle 251 3/6
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LOL, I had JEN (@Nancy) and happily wrote in JENEcestQUOI, with an "oh I love that expression" feeling as well. Nonsense of course. But didn't see what was wrong until NODES had to work. Also got all the way to MICHigANGE__ before concluding that maybe the Mannerist style had nothing to do with Michigan. Lol, just not my day. But did untangle everything and always enjoy ultimately getting through a Friday. Will take some solace in PILAU/HUEYS going straight in without even a ??.
Didn’t know mannerist art but had the MICHEL beginning it, remembered there was an art movement in which the human form was reduced to simple geometric shapes, outlined in black, and I wrote in MICHElinman. (I made it fit). My wife was skeptical. “Trust me,” I said.
I mostly love Friday puzzles, and this was no exception. On my preferred difficulty level, no gimmicks or weirdness. I let crosses fill in 27A because ANTE did not seem to be right. Left the last letter off 48D initially because I knew what Rex had apparently never heard of.
One of the great joys of this blog is that someone like @Off the Grid (6:32) will come up with such an apt, nay inspired link as that.
Of course what was funny then is immensely sad now. But that doesn't make the link any less apt.
Actually John Shearman is right.
Art History, properly taught and understood, is liekely the most interdiciplinary subject in the Humanities. But don't take my word, or Mr. Sheraman's, take Salon's
https://www.salon.com/2017/01/15/the-art-of-learning-why-art-history-might-be-the-most-important-subject-you-could-study-today/
@mmorgan - exactly what you said:)
@pabloinnh - I hadn't heard the "I bear a grudge" translation before. My Quebecoise
wife loves it!
Didn't Edward Hopper do a Mannerist Madonna and Child alone in the manger looking out over a barren desert landscape? You can find it at the Edward Hopper museum in Nyack.
@SonVolt - thanks for the East 116th St African restaurant tip!
@Gio - Atomic Energy Commission, a clue I passed over, then got the answer from the crosses, so it didn't register until you mentioned it.
@Southside, while you were waiting for the IQ rant from Rex, I was waiting for a certain JENESAISQUOI rant from you. The DANTE to which you refer is one and the same, which is why you couldn't think of another:) (see Barbara S.'s post)
Seemed about average themeless FriPuzish to m&e. Tough at times, easy at others, and definitely solvable in a finite number of nanoseconds.
staff weeject picks: That whole NW corner's worth of weejecta: IQS/ISM. SUE. MED. Got M&A off to a very fast [dare I say impressive] start, before smashin into that QUEEN???? of mystery at 2-D.
Anyhoo, A+ grade to any puz that has BUTT HATS in it. themelessthUmbsUp.
Some nice gimme meat along the solvequest way: SCATMAN. WIKIPEDIA. MICHELANGELO. JENESAISQUOI [except for gettin it spelt right].
Thanx for the fun, Mr. G dude.
Masked & Anonym8Us
Worggler … a new puz craze absolutely guaranteed not to catch on:
**gruntz**
Poker is no Bro. Someone is talking out of his hat.
Here is the final table at last year's World Series of Poker
Seat 1: Jareth East (8,300,000 in chips) ...Brit. maybe Bro-ey
Seat 2: Koray Aldemir Berlinner, now living in Vienna ( the heart of bro kultur)
Seat 3: Jack Oliver B. A from kent university, UK. Former fiancial analyst.
Seat 4: Ozgur Secilmis Turkish national about as Bro as... Rex
Seat 5: George Holmes--middle-aged black man
Seat 6: Chase Bianchi--married, father of two foster kids
Lots of bros play poker. Many more play Ultimate. Just sayin'.
@Gio - Atomic Energy Commission
@Multidisciplianarians - When I went to college, I had to take courses in Economics, PoliSci, Modern Literature,Classical Literature, Poetry, Sociology,History, and Art History. I was a Science major. How many Art History majors took classes in all those studies, plus Electronics, Physics, Physical Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Differential Equations, Biology, Hydrodynamics and Physics?
This was at [ Not the good one ] Institute of Technology in the late 70's/Early 80's.
@People who say " .. I wonder why @Rex didn't go on a rant about ..." Why do you say that? Almost all of you complain when he does go on a rant, accuse him of being a snowflake or being fake woke, so why are you upset to the point of mentioning it when he doesn't. It's almost as if you just want to complain about @Rex.
@Anon 11:18
By BRO., I think @Z meant a serious lack of women.
Your list proves his point.
This was quite a workout for ME but I didn’t have to use WIKIPEDIA even once. Oh I had to TABLE it a few times and my inner cheater BECAME quite persistent whispering in my ear to just go ahead and look up the answer. But I SMELLed victory so no, I said, WILL YOU BE QUIET! while I sedulously PLIED my skills and persevered.
I don’t speak French but love the expression JE NE SAIS QUOI. It has well, a certain something, and so did this puzzle. Très bien Damon! And merci.
Quite a bit of trouble posting my comment today. Gremlins in the system apparently. Off to Wordle to try out PILAU as a starter.
Like the puzzle. The long answers were, for me, quite good. Not a lot a junk as is sometimes used to fill up puzzles. So a smile on my face.
Ah, Z, my use of "obsessed" yesterday was an attempt to joke. I suspect you understood this, but others might not have.
An smallish addition to the comments about transposition instruments from yesterday. Nancy, there really is not much to understand about transposing instruments. You play, for example, a scale of A Major the same on each instrument, but the resulting scale with sound different. Some of the organs in Bach's day were tuned as "transposing" instruments. So when you look at a Bach score for, say, a cantata, you see what the organist is playing but hear it in a different key. Simplifies things for the performer, but makes it more difficult for you and the composer.
How difficult for the composer? Stravinsky, when he first began written atonal works, wrote something for a chamber ensemble (I think an octet)
and each instrument transposed into a different key. Peter Schickele claims that Stravinsky was present during a recording of the work; that a wrong instrument was used on the first take of one of the movements; and that Stravinsky never noticed that one of the parts was transposed into the wrong key. Or so he said during a segment of his now defunct radio show.
Let's hope after today we are finished with wintry weather.
JC 66,
Not at all. Re-read his post. Z explicitly avers that even if the tourney were all women it woulsd still illustrate the concept of bro to one not familar with it.
👏🏽🤩 ❤️MICHELANGELO ❤️🤩👏🏽
BUTTHATSJUSTME
a Wordle result yesterday
* AT **
DEATH
(wish I could upload screenshot)
WILLYOUBEQUIET
about Wordle.
Please! ok.
A
L
O
N
E
T
I
M
E
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Anonymous 11:28,
You shoul have taken a copurse in logic. The quetion wasn't whether Art Histor majors had to take classes in lots of disciplnes--though all the elite schools I know require a smattering of hard science, alnguage and Socail sciences-the point was that art history was itself all those classes. Physics for optics, math for the golden ratio, architecure for perspecive and line, sociology and history for why so and so is or isnt in the Picture, theology for why ther's a halo, or a purple gown etc. The class, properly taught, is one-stopping shopping for many, many dsiciplnes.
In N. Florida, I was treated to squirrel perloo. Perloos are usually made with chicken and are a traditional Southern dish. It's another regional variation from the original Sanskrit, like pilaf and pilau.
re: interdisciplinary study and what people should know from what they took at university: Look people! I graduated from college in 19-aught-99 and I do not remember most of my art history, literature, econ, etc. classes. That was a long time ago. For Rex it's even longer ago (I infer this as he said his kid has already graduated from college as well). Just because you specialize in something or other doesn't mean you remember every. single. thing that went along with those courses. Give people a break.
I got stuck at HfEY and PILAf and just had to DNF. If I'd stayed patiently going through the whole alphabet I would have gotten there at some point but .. meh. Otherwise, it was hard and I'm proud I got that far without needing the hint.
Next thing you know, Rex will claim to never have heard the warbling of Edith Piau, or to know that St. Olau is the patron saint of Norway. Chill out, Rex. Eat some meatloau and drink some decau.
BUTT HATS JUST ME sounds severely self deprecating. And WIILY OU BE QUIET was, I believe, a line from Death of a Salesman.
Overall, this puzzle had a certain JE NE SAIS KOI, but then, I really don’t know much about fish.
Actually I really liked it. Thanks, Damon G.
Is the painting of the dogs playing poker considered to be in the Mannerist style? Just wondering.
@Carola 10:42
Maybe we were on the same flight? My dad lived in Buenos Aires and I spent a ton of time in the beautiful city. We'd fly (often) from BA to Santiago and the pilot ALWAYS tipped his wings while passing Aconcagua.
I hope you ate a parillada at "La Estancia" in Buenos Aires and maybe ate the rennet fish and maybe some charquican stew in Santiago.....
Such memories of food, grandeur and the wonderful friendly people.
Mediumish. Delightful. I knew PILAU because I recently did the 2002 puzzle from the archives. That puzzle tricked me in putting in PILAf which took a long time to fix. I also knew MEADE which helped a lot in the tough NE corner. Lots of sparkle, liked it a bunch!
I highly recommend following the link at Xwordinfo to Damon’s comments.
Maria Konnikova has a book called The Biggest Bluff about her adventures in the Pro Poker circuit.
Because I’ve learned a lot from my husband over the years about war and the military I knew Huey was a type of helicopter. Before I came to the blog I checked a gut feeling and confirmed that the helicopters in the Ride of the Valkyries scene in Apocalypse Now were Hueys. This is to say that I plopped it in but changed the U to an F with PILAF, saw a squirrel and forgot about it until I didn’t hear the happy music. I then returned to the scene of the crime to reinstate the U. And no, I have not heard of PILAU until today but “exotic” food is MY Achilles heel, just like foreign language is to @Southside.
@Unknown 7:46, I laughed out loud with THE PILAU GUY remark.
Yes, please do NOT get into a discussion of IQs…just serves to remind me how crestfallen I was told by the school counselor my IQ was “high average”, I said (I kid you not)…”so does that mean ABOVE average”? Counselor: Um no, it means you are high in the range of average. 🤣 I don’t even know if they still do those in school today, but if so I doubt they reveal any info to students.
@TJS…yes, three handed (Cutthroat) pinochle has a blind of three cards. I think of an ANTE as chips or cash but the only poker I know is draw poker.
@JC66 11:30 - Just being male doesn’t a bro make, although the other quintessential bro source is probably college fraternities. But you are correct that a list of guys, some of whom happen to not be Americans, is not much of a counter argument. I would say the two most prominent examples of the worst kind of bro are Trump and Putin, neither of whom qualify as Americans.
@11:18 - Yes, there are bros who play disc, although I think disc golf and Guts have a higher percentage than ultimate. The college ultimate scene probably has the highest percentage, although the amount of training required to compete at the highest levels also exposes people to lots of bro attitudes.
@Barbara S - I think this may be a first, but I beg to differ. Even “interdisciplinary” fields inevitably narrow because there is just simply too much to know. The choice inevitably becomes between knowing a little about a lot or knowing a lot about a little, that is knowing more and more about less and less. As a result, even though they may use the tools of different fields, it doesn’t take long for an “interdisciplinary” field to evolve into a new discipline every bit as different from its progenitors as marine biology is from architecture. And now I’m feeling the need to reread Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (Putin is helping with that feeling).
Also, just to be clear, I think Art History is a cornerstone to a well rounded education.
@DJG - This reminds me a little of my observation a few days ago about fried pastries stuffed with savory foods. That is, it seems like every cuisine has some variation on the dish and it’s own name, but at their core a pierogi and an empanada are the same dish. Adding spices and some vegetables or nuts to rice is similar. Wikipedia basically has PILAf as a native dish on 6 of 7 continents and a brief paragraph on the etymological differences between PILAf and PILAU, but for all intents and purposes c’est la même chose.
@Beverly C - Color me impressed.
@Gio - AEC has appeared in the NYTX 131 times since 1950 and it has always been clued in some way to indicate that it is the Atomic Energy Commission. File it away because it’s coming to another puzzle near you soon.
Texas Hold'Em has been called the "Cadillac of poker". The late professional player and TV commentator Mike Sexton used to say that it takes a few minutes to learn and a lifetime to master. I liken it to a combination of playing chess and rolling the dice. It also helps to be proficient at reading body language and other nonverbal clues (which are referred to as "tells" that can give away a players hand).
I've been playing poker, mostly Hold'Em, regularly for the last 15 years or so. Played last night and got my butt kicked. The final indignity that busted my bankroll for the evening was delivered by one of our regular female players when she beat my pocket queens by hitting her flush on the river. For the record there were six bros and three sistas at the table, all of us long-time experienced players.
My issue is with the clue for 27A ANTE "Counterpart to a blind, in poker". An ANTE is a set amount paid by all players before the deal and is part of many different types of poker while a blind is a compulsory bet only in Texas Hold'Em by the two players to the left of the dealer (small blind and big blind). The deal rotates each hand so the blinds do also. In our local games we don't even have ANTEs, just the two blinds. So I'm guessing that the clue (and some of today's comments) was written by someone who doesn't play poker or whose knowledge of poker is limited to watching it on TV.
Ante vs BLIND
"Ante is a bet that everyone in the game must make in order to stay at the table. It forces there to always be at least some payout in the pot, increasing the relative value of playing a hand to folding.
Blinds are bets that only one or two players are forced to make, usually a small blind and a big blind, the small blind at half the big blind. They are bet by the two players after the dealer, and thus rotate around as the dealer rotates. The blinds start betting off; bidding starts with the player after the big blind, and players must call or raise the blind bet to stay in the game, otherwise they fold. It puts less in the pot than ante does, thus it does less to incentivize staying in the game, but it still puts enough in that it's worth it for some people to stay in as they do stand to win something, and the players who played the blinds stand to lose them if they simply fold." (Brian Campbell on boardgames.stackexchange.com)
@mathgent (9:22 AM)
Agreed; fun misdirect! :)
@puzzlehoarder 👍 for all those 0's
@beverly c (10:46 AM) 🎩s off for your 3*
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Wordle 251 4/6*
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Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Oh boy, a challenge of a puzzle AND an excuse to talk about Perlou Chicken (that’s South Carolinian for PILAU), which my stepfather used to make in a pressure cooker. Delicious stuff, and very easy. I think he just sauteed some onion, garlic and celery in the pressure cooker, then added the rice, water, spices (heavy on the black pepper) and a cut up chicken. In no time we'd be enjoying the ultimate comfort food.
“The crowning glory of Carolina rice cookery was pilau (or, as it is frequently spelled and pronounced, “perlo” or “purloo.”) A relative of Turkey’s pilaf and Spain’s paella, the dish originated in Persia, spread across southern Europe and Africa, and was brought to the Lowcountry by the enslaved laborers who grew the rice.”
I had a couple years of French in HS (actually first grade, too). Just enough to wonder why it isn’t JE NE SAIS pas QUOI? I’ll look it up but thought I’d share the puzzlement.
I really did enjoy this - definitely a “faith solve” a la @Lewis - a couple of moments where I thought “there’s no way” but I kept putting in letters and scraped my way to the finish. Loved the union connections cross with IDO/NODES.
George Harrison would be 79 today. Had a hard time with this one. I changed the link 3 times.
Again the commentariat were as amusing as today’s grid. I wasted a good 30 minutes trying to link Tom Lehrer’s So Long, Mom before reading others…..then discovered the link from @Off the Grid as the THIRD comment, egads! Actually I went searching for the grid’s AEC reference which is on another cut from that album. Truly & profoundly sad that such satire is as relevant today as it was then. Like Lehrer, Gulczynski is, as @Math Gent points out, a math nerd. Damon clearly possesses a breadth of interests and depth of knowledge of truly interdisciplinary scope as his 40+ NYT grids attest. And his Joe Pancake blog confirmed he actually has a sense of humor too.
@Anonymous (11:00) has a nice link to cut and paste as complement to @Barbara S whose reference to today’s opening comment & nice J. Shearman book link opened up a whole new rabbit hole to fall into as time allows.without their clueing, I wouldn’t have had an inkling.
Hell, even the puzzle was fun & a delightful diversion from the DANTEsque reality of CNN.
Quebec is La Belle Province. Not Bell. But the Pabloinnh translation of “je me Souviens” is witty and apt.
@Southside Johnny ("Similarly, the only DANTE that I know of his the inferno one - so if this one is/was real, I never heard of him.") That is the DANTE being referenced, Dante Alighieri, so you have heard of him. (Or am I misunderstand your sentence? He wrote "The Divine Comedy" that you reference, of which The Inferno is the first part.)
PILAU for PILAf is something I've commonly come across. As said above, South Asian and some Middle Eastern restaurants will often have it spelled that way. I just searched for "pilau" spelled that way in Yelp for my location and I have hits of reviewers using that spelling in comments on Indian, Pakistani, and Afghani restaurants. And there's other spellings of that word, but PILAU and PILAF are the most usual I see. I'll also see PULAO, PILAV, and PLOV (Uzbekistan/Central Asia.) It's one of those words that depends on who's transliterating it and which culture you're talking about. It's similar to "shawarma" in that manner, which can be found as "shwarma," "schwarma," "shewerma," and many others.
Well eat me some autocorrect grits....
The fish is called REINETA. Take that and smoke it.
@egs 12:02
As usual, the cackle chuckle of the day comes from your post.
Edith Piau, indeed.
@Beezer:
When I came to America, my eeeeenglish wasn't muy bueno... They IQ tested me and I think I was in the "seriously dumb" category. My mother was seriously devastated....I had no idea what an IQ meant nor did I care. We escaped Fidel and Che and that was the only important thing to me. Besides, I got to eat American candies and eat a ton of powdered donuts. So there!
I am not really familiar with the term "bro" as it is being tossed around here today. Is the following what you commenting "bros" mean?
"...a young male who is part of a group of similar male friends stereotypically characterized as hearty, athletic, self-confident, party-loving, etc."
I am more in the "geezer" - or coarser but probably more accurate "old fart" category - but I wouldn't mind an upgrade to "bro": is there an upper age limit?
Meant to credit the source for the PILAU paragraph in my 12:40 post. It’s from Roads&Kingdoms, a website that I’m adding to my favorites. It reminded me of Anthony Bourdain, and sure enough, they partnered with him on Explore Parts Unknown. The name is, as the website says, “cribbed from The Book of Roads & Kingdoms, a phenomenal early travelogue written in the 11th century by Abu Abdullah al-Bakri in Córdoba, now home to a mediocre football club playing in Spain’s second division.”
I don’t get the clue for BUTTHATSJUSTME. Is it a modern cutesy-ism? Thanks for the help.
I switched my PILAf to PILAv thinking it might be an alternate spelling and hoping there might be a link between choppers and humvees.
Alas . . .
Despite all this, I enjoyed this one. Some wonderful answers.
Who else? Who ISiT? With flED in place at 43A, I began to wonder if the 36D wildflower looked like ST florin (some saint anyway, I don't know). That APED answer was my last fill-in. And I never fixed my PILAf, just figured it was some military initialISM (I know of HUEYS but PILAf was solid, I thought.)
I got caught by 15A's non-S plural and didn't have any spare TIME for the parents at 33D. Damon got me good today, so thanks for the challenging Friday, Damon!
I read the clue and plopped in QUEBECKER, then when I realized the mistake I was pleased. "Kweh-beck-er" (ugh) vs "Kay-beck-wah". @pabloinnh, I like your translation of "Je me souviens".
In the lower left we have WILLY, ALLIE, PAYEE, LILY, and HUEY!
[Spelling Bee: yd pg-5; all words I knew. I just wasn't into it. td 9:20 to get to pg; bocamp beat me!]
Thanks@Gill I, you ALWAYS have a good word to say and an interesting story to tell! I eventually got over my “average” designation and just decided I must just be a high achiever!
Just an FYI: the clue for 27 Across (alternative to a blind, in poker) isn't well worded. In every poker tournament I've ever played in, there are blinds AND antes, not one or the other. I got the answer - ANTE - easily enough but it could've been better clued.
MFCTM.
Carola (10:42)
Anonymous (11:18)
Anonymous (11:29)
pmdm (11:40)
egsforbreakfast (12:02)
Newboy (12:40)
@pmdm - The curse of plain text. My response was also intendeds to be seen as tongue firmly in cheek.
@egs - I had a bad “Does Edith Piau eat PILAU” quip lined up and forgot to include it. Great minds and all that and now I’m bummed that I didn’t make it first.
@beezer - We got our school record when we graduated and I immediately looked for the IQ. Even though they gave some version of IQ tests several times they never recorded the score in our records (some related info was recorded). Now that I know all the flaws with the tests I am impress that my school district already had made some informed decisions in the 1960’s.
@bigsteve46 - Yeah, “bro” used to be a much more positive term and is still sometimes used that way. Here’s a good definition that’s closer to how I hear it most often now,
A person who would give you the shirt off his back if he doesn't want to wear it anymore. A Bro is a person who will bend over backwards to help you bend someone over backwards. In short, a Bro is a lifelong companion you can always trust to be there for you, unless he's got something else going on. (from Urban Dictionary, but not the top definition)
@Leon (12:13 PM )
Great read! I also enjoyed Konnikova's 'The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It . . . Every Time' and 'Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes'.
___
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
@Z: "The choice inevitably becomes between knowing a little about a lot or knowing a lot about a little, that is knowing more and more about less and less."
Love it, @Z. Such an outlook, which I share, was a major reason why I never was interested in getting a Master's Degree, much less a Ph.D. The other reason (from yesterday's puzzle) is, of course, SLOTH.
OFL left California too soon, I think. Or simply never played poker, back when poker palaces were big in Southern California, and poker rooms were all over the place in Northern California. I sometimes played in Palo Alto, and played a lot at Artichoke Joe's in San Bruno, so I knew that instead of an ANTE, it was usual to have a big blind, which counted as that player's first bet, and also a little blind. Kinda got each hand off to a good start, and guaranteed that no game would be passed out on the first round of play. If you had the big blind and no one bet, you won automatically, but almost always someone would call the blind, or raise, and so the win was not automatic.
IQS was what I wanted, but did not figure out the crosses until most of the rest of the puzzle was filled in. HUEYS was my first answer, being in the Vietnam generation, and having hung out with a lot of vets when I started practicing law. What I didn't get at all was PILAU. Never heard of it. However, if you watch the local news or Jeopardy in the San Francisco area, you see a lot of ads for Hawaiian AIRLINES, so that was a gimme.
I think JE NE SAIS QUOI should be in the Rexworld Hall of Fame. Perfectly clued, and guaranteed to raise a smile.
@Carola, @GILL -- Now that there's an internet, just about every conceivable "experience" can be enjoyed by anyone -- even if it's a little bit 2nd-hand.
Was this the view of the Andes that you both remember by any chance?
Until Anoa Bob shows up, BLIND as a substitute to ante has nothing to do with face down cards, it's a method of betting that is used sometimes. Usually everyone has to ante the same amount to play the game. When playing with blinds, there is not ante, but a rotating pair of players are the Small and Big Blind, who each have to put money in the pot, the small blind one less (usually 1/2) than the big blind. The small blind then bets next to last, as play progresses, the big blind plays last.
And poker is the most broey thing in existence. It is basically just one guy out to prove he's better than the other guy. There's nothing else to it.
Like you, @beverly c (10:46), I struck out completely on my first word, almost struck out on my second, and still got it in three.
Proving that "it's not where you start, it's where you finish." And that sometimes the process of elimination is good enough.
Beverly and I did well, everyone. This is NOT an easy three.
Wordle 251 3/6
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@Chip Hilton - "You mileage may vary", or simply YMMV in text or Internet shortening speak, is a colloquial phrase that derives from the familiar car commercial disclaimer "your mileage may vary." When used figuratively, it means "your experience/results/opinion may differ from mine." I'm not sure how recent the figurative usage is, but I'm guessing at least 20 years old.
Literature majors pretty much read books. It's probably the most loosely defined discipline. The funny thing is is that as we agree we remember less for knowledge and more cause we give a shit. I'm almost an art minor, spend way more time in art museums than most, and I had a hard time with whatever the hell mannerism was.
If anyone is actually interested in Mannerist paintings with The Madonna and Child as its subject, check out Pamigianino's madonna with the Long Neck.
I'd be interested to hear from any M.D.s who see the painting and hear your thoughts on how marfant's syndrome may be at play.
Remeber ther is no such thing as a Hopper museum in Nyack, New York, only his boyhood home.
@Pete (9:47) Not sure I understand your last sentence as I’ve never noticed your being particularly annoying. Besides, everyone’s allowed to be once in a while. I mean if there wasn’t an occasional controversial comment, what would there be to grouse about?
@A (12:40) A few years ago in South Carolina I had my first ever taste of Chicken Bog and was an instant fan. As nearly as I can tell, it’s very similar to Perlou, but please correct me if I’m wrong. I tried making it myself and ended up with a sticky muck which I determined was a result of using the wrong kind of rice. Can you give me a recommendation on a particular type or brand that works best? I could fix a pot of chicken and noodles that would make you swoon but rice is something I rarely cook with.
@Nancy (1:35) Thanks for the clip. I’ve seen some mountain ranges but that is awe inspiring.
Z,
Please identify the bros at the WSOP final table last year.
Fact is, lots of bros play poker. It's a very bro-ey thing to do. But poker is far too popular, has far too many playing it to call it bro-ey per se.
You tend to make, or echo Rex's, sweeping statements. They are so often not correct. Today's is a great example.
It's really an animus disguised as analysis.
I gave you the final table to demonstrate what actual poker players-- not bro-ey dilettantes-- look like it. The Bros, for the most part, get bounced from tourneys pretty quickly.
Real poker players, devoted players, the kind who make it to the final table in a tournament are in fact, observant numbers people, able to see what's happening and why based on a, relatively, finite set of possibilities all with monetary implications.
A middle-aged black man? A guy from Turkey? A financial analyst? Really, these are bros?
Yeah, they wear sunglasses--but not to be bros, but as you know, or should, to not give anything away.
Anyway, I'd' love for you identify the Bros at last years WSOP final table. TIA
I am very much enjoying @pmdm's attempts to explain transposition, even though they go so far over my head that planes are being diverted from the area.
Also, thank you @A for the George Harrison link. It is good to know someone besides me remembers that song. And as a bonus, when it was finished, YouTube went on to play End of the Line for me, and shortly thereafter What is Life. I am feeling mighty blissful now.
Yep. A whole lot of trial and error.
i was an art major and Michelangelo isn't notably mannerist (at least when I studied it).
Punt: A KICK-BOAT keoa (condensed form). I suspected BOAT because Friday and the clue wavelength thus far. And I got a kick out of the BOAT-CANOE collision.
Mannerism I know from nothing. I see MICH and I think of the great Michaelangelo and I think what I'm going to do? Aha, drop the A.
The Madonna and Child in Rex's link is an interesting cross between classical beauty and diseased deformity. I got more hung-up with does the possibly a woman have a penis down by the child's left foot? Enlarge. Well its something. Oh her thumb and index finger grasping maybe fabric on the bottom of the jug? But thats just me. Does it qualify me for for bro-hood?
@Z Maybe Bach is the chief influence on 12 tone music? And hey, haven't you mentioned that your lack of interest in spelling as a reason for not appreciating Scrabble and anagrams?
OK. I looked up MEADE to get a jumpstart and checked AVEDON to see if there was such a person and checked to see how to spell JENESAISQUOI. I think I've mastered that last one now.
Putting in SPIRAL WILLYOUBEQUIET ALLIE delay helis gave me ILLll for Huh. Yes I knew something was wrong. And I eventuually completed the West Coast.
Thanks for BUTT HATS, Piau, I grieve, and much else this day.
I actually got a BS in math instead of a BA because the BS allowed me to fulfill my required courses more quickly and take more history, philosophy, and psych courses than I would with a BA.
SLEEPTIME before ALONETIME.
@2:28 8,589 People entered the 2019 WSOP final tournament. Nine people made the final table. The chances they are representative of the initial pool are approximately zero. The first 8K people to get booted out were likely all bros, guys who knew nothing but thought they knew everything.
Pretty much by definition, the elite are not representative of the whole.
I use to play poker at the local bars. Very very bro-ey. But then so are the local bars.
@Anoa
Never played holdem w/o antes. I doubt if it's common but could be just my butt hats.
@A
Maybe Ive just forgotten that Harrison song. Pretty sure I never saw the video. Thanks.
@Nancy...YES, YES and YES. We always tried to fly KLM because their service was fantastic. It's a short flight but a beautiful one. Once you go over the mountains range, you take a little nose dive into Santiago's airport. The first time usually scares the pants off of you. But then you arrive in Chile and look forward to eating some of the best fish in the world...Seriously!
PS. You get used to the nose dive....
Being in Hawai‘i, getting AIRLINE after AIR was filled in was easy.
However, PILAU instead of PILAF is really weird. In Hawaiian, "pilau" means to stink - a rotting kind of stink. That it's used to describe food just does not feel right.
@albatross shell - The hold 'em games I've always played do not have antes. Draw and stud games have antes. Hold 'em games have no antes, but have a big blind and a small blind that seed the pot. I've never come across a hold 'em game with an ante (which is what I understand your comment to be saying), but house rules vary, of course.
@Nancy......correct.
i know 2 people with this result today. different words to get there.
Wordle 251 4/6
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4 is not par. if it was i would be 18 under.
Wordle 251 4/6
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Today seemed word.
@Peter P
I'm almost convinced you are right on antes. Not sure if my memory is wrong or if the people who ran the tournaments in my area did have antes. I checked with a friend who visiting and her memory was the same as mine. Checking the internet, it seems the clue is correct. Blinds in place of ANTES.
@Whatsername, I’d never heard of Chicken Bog before today - it seems there’s not much difference, although some say it is soupier than Perlou/Perlo/Purloo. Sadly, I have yet to recreate the dish, but I saw a recommendation on the Roads&Kingdoms site for Carolina Gold. “By the early 19th century, the rice used in the best pilaus would have been Carolina Gold. That famed variety, a medium-grain rice with a clean, sweet flavor, was prized around the world.” It disappeared for a while but was rediscovered by a duck-hunting eye doctor in the 1980’s, according to bbc.com: Is this the world’s greatest rice?
@kitshef, I had forgotten about Crackerbox Palace but it all came back when I listened to it today. Two songs I didn’t know but almost shared were The Answer’s At the End, and Blow Away, which must surely be in the running for blissiest. A welcome diversion today.
Also got a laugh at your wonderful “I am very much enjoying @pmdm's attempts to explain transposition, even though they go so far over my head that planes are being diverted from the area.”
The explanations I saw have been accurate, but assume a certain level of musical knowledge, without which one can still be left in the dark. Fortunately, understanding transposition has virtually no bearing on the appreciation of music!
QUECECOISe here… PILAU was somewhere in my bran, perhaps from travels to other countries? Fun crossword!
Well not exactly shell. Typically there are only big and small blinds, meaning only two players are ponying up pre deal. Antes are typically required of all players.
In Hawaiian, PILAU means rotten, putrid, smelly ... all things you would NOT want to call any food dish.
I think the game of poker is want you want it to be. I like the mathematical and psychological aspects and hate the roll-of-dice part. Some players like the gambling part and play for the adrenal rush of winning a big pot. As to the bro-ness of the game, allow me to tell you about one of our regular female players.
She first showed up at our local club's tables several years back and she said that she was a beginner with no knowledge at all about poker. When we asked why she wanted to learn how to play she said that one of her sons had been a serious poker player and that he had recently passed away and she wanted to find out why he had been so taken with the game.
Her first couple of years were rough but she persisted and nowadays she is a good player and enjoys the game very much. And she always brings a pie or cake or something like that to our games! I don't know if there is a counterpart to bro-ness but there should be.
A toughie.
The SW corner proved my bete noire, and none of my JENESAIDQUOI could fix it.
I found MEADE to be tough. I inferred it from my other letters, but never heard of the fellow, despite my liberal arts education. And even though I love my local Indian restaurant, I never heard of PILAU. Maybe that's because it's spelled PILAF on their menu.
And while the constant back and forth tussle between Z and Anonymous is always good for a chuckle or a yawn, I will pipe in and say that I agree with Z on this one: Poker, and particularly the way it's shown on ESPN, is the epitome of bro culture. That Anonymous can list who the finalists were and what they do for a living just shows he has way too much time on his hands or is some sort of poker nerd. But it doesn't change reality: Poker is big-time bro business.
And yes, 4 is true par for Wordle. Not everyone is as "wordy" as you.
@A: Thank you for the information. I’m on a mission to find Carolina rice and give chicken bog another try. Now if I could only learn how to cook grits I’d be in southern hog heaven. 😋
So this is late and I'm not as scintillating as LMS but did study linguistics and a handful of languages.
The letters V and F are the same, just voiced and unvoiced.
The letters B and V are often interchangeable.
The letters V and W are also often interchangeable. In Marathi, which I know a bit of, words with V are often pronounced in quick speech with what sounds to us like a W or sometimes a B! (the word for rice, chaval, is a good example).
If you try it you will discover that B and W are ve-e-ery close to being another voiced/unvoiced pair.
What I mean is that these letters/sounds are all closely related and interchangeable.
It is not a stretch to get from PILAF to PILAU.
Although I don't think I did a fabulous job explaining.
Unknown,
The regulars here that identify as poker players, albatross and anonymous Bob are hardly bros.
They seem to me very much more representative than Rex’s dismissive sniff, One is a mathematician by training, the other a professional therapist and student of human nature. That pretty much sums up,poker players.
While that may be debatable, the next point isn’t.
The fact that alll,or the vast majority of players you see on an ESPN poker telecast isn’t because the preponderance of players are bros, rather it’s because the majority of the viewers watching the telecast are bros.
You’ve gotten cause and effect exactly backwards. And I’d be happy to,sit down and play you in any game employing logic.
@anon
In that the two purposes of blinds and antes are to build up the pot and not to let people play for free, one is a substitute for the other, especially since the blinds rotate. The differences are minor or negligible if you are playing many hands relative to those purposes. But if you mean they are not identical... . Consider two players paying the ante for all players in 2 installments for each hand on a rotating basis. The ante = (sum of of both blinds) ÷ (number of players).
Alternative was the word in the clue.
@Unknown
I knew MEADE because of playing the board game Gettysburg as a kid. Nothing to do with a liberal arts education. I did not know him as clued.
Can we agree that scoring high on IQ tests means you have sufficient knowledge and brightness to give correct answers on certain standardized tests that are used to measure IQ?
Albatross ,
Yep. I know. Alternative, meaning different. Not synonymous meaning same.
This expat Brit had pilau no problem and only just realized it's the same thing as that mystery pilaf thing
For those who didn't know MEADE, let me point out that Fort George Meade is just as major an exit if you're driving between Washington and Baltimore as Natick is when you're approaching Boston on the Mass Pike. :)
Villager
Stick a sock in it worked so well for 51A with only the final T in place.
Forgot one.
To anyone else thinking Walden or Thoreau, besides no 1942 classic movie It's Walden; or, Life in the Woods.
@8:05
also, the site of the CIA, NSA, DIA, and sundry other unnamed spook houses.
Maybe not in the NYT, but I have seen pilau at least as many times as pilaf. When I see a clue that can be answered with polar, I always leave the last letter open thinking that it can be either an "f" or a "u."
@Z
I think you'll enjoy tomorrow's puzzle. 😂
@anon
Alternative? different?
Substitute? Synonymous?
I can a substitute a synonymous word as an alternative. I can go to one play or as an alternative go to a different play or a movie or a concert. One is substituted for the other or chosen as an alternative but all are different but all provide a night of entertainment. Thus they serve similar functions. I do not understand what quibble you are making relative to blind and ante. They serve very similar functions in poker are alternatives though similar in form and function but not identical. Things can be different on one level and synonymous on another.
@JC66 - 🤣😂🤣 - I have questions about docking my boat.
@Albatross Shell - Wordle and it’s variants are to spelling as Sudoku is to math. Occasionally there’s some anagramming involved.
Daily Quordle #32
7️⃣6️⃣
3️⃣9️⃣
quordle.com
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨🟨🟩 🟩⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜ 🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟨🟩🟨⬜⬜ ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩⬜🟨🟨 ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜🟨🟩⬜⬜
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I learned PILAU from an Iranian client in about 2000, and around the same time, met our now dear, dear friends both QUÉBÉCOIS (now living in Missoula Montana-lucky folks) and those were the easy places. I have been nibbling at this one all dang day and finally finished. What a workout!
BUT THAT’S JUST ME does not seem to be a good response to “Your mileage may vary” . . . BUT THAT’S JUST ME. overall, a challenging Friday with a definite JE NE SAIS QUOI.
Anon m6:36 - "The fact that alll,or the vast majority of players you see on an ESPN poker telecast isn’t because the preponderance of players are bros, rather it’s because the majority of the viewers watching the telecast are bros" ????????????
I don't know if I want to enter into a contest of logic with you, but I'm game for who can construct a sentence which makes sense
Art & culture, yes
Well, I do appreciate art and have read biographies of Michelangelo, DaVinci and their contemporaries, but still found myself sadly ignorant of the term ‘mannerism,’ so I thank you for the link in your daily rant. It began what turned into a two-hour-long exploration of the rabbit hole that is the internet, as I followed link after link to see images of paintings and sculptures by various artists, ending with giant columns in some architectural structures. I am woefully slow to start my day but it was entirely worth it.
The best rice dish I ever had was Pilau cooked by my Afghan friends mom, sisters and aunt. Never compared to any Afghan restaurant I tried. It was so good that I actually get annoyed when I see pilaf in a puzzle.
Nice and crunchy but fair, Loved it. BUTTHATSJUSTME.
ACTUAL NEWS
BAMBI, YOU and IDO need ALONETIME,
I'm GOODAT SEDUCTION, YOU see.
So WILLYOUBEQUIET on your OWNED dime?
It's CILIA YOU, BUTTHAT'SJUSTME.
--- MICHELANGELO MEADE
Alternate spellings not listed by OFF: PILAW and PILAFF. But as he said: who knew? Still, HUEYS was obvious. It had to be U (!).
This is one of those very rare days when I thought the puzzle was easier than OFF did. I wasn't very far along till I saw BUTTHATSJUSTME, which in turn gave me JENESAISQUOI, and soon after WILLYOUBEQUIET. With all those letters in, the fill-in was pretty simple. Didn't know AVEDA, but crosses took care of it.
A nice grid with plenty of long answers and not bad distortion in the fill. It's a birdie, though after this week it looks like a world-beater. Mr. G is fast joining the elite group of constructors. He's gonna be around for a while.
A little too French for MOI, but I got there. Started badly with LUX as brightness measures, made sense to me, BUTTTHATSJUSTME apparently. Knew HUEYS was right but that PILAU thing? OFL is correct there.
ILLBE on an extended vacation for most of the month so don't be worried if I'm AWOL here. Possibly headed in @D,LIW's general direction?
Who knew Auntie ANTE had another name? Not I. Ya learn something every day.
Hey @Rondo - my French finally pays off, vs. all that other stuff I don't know! So which direction is that? Lemme know.
Funniest one was WILLYOUBEQUIET, which I guessed off the bat and couldn't believe was correct!
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
Atomic Energy Commission
Emon B.
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