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Slangy SoCal dialect / SUN 2-27-22 / Rhea with four Emmys / Best-selling crime novelist Gregg / sea captain robber thief 2003 / true fellow is a find 1946 / M Ryan what's her yell 1989 / REM alarming to the teens 1984 / They have massive calves
Sunday, February 27, 2022
Constructor: Sheldon Polonsky
Relative difficulty: Easy, maybe Easy-Medium
Theme answers:
- "PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN" (22A: "Sea captain: robber, thief (2003)")
- "IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE" (34A: "True fellow is a find (1946)")
- "THE TOWERING INFERNO" (52A: "Re: town fire one night (1974)")
- "THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA" (75A: "Evil Streep had award (2006)")
- "WHEN HARRY MET SALLY" (91A: "M. Ryan, what's her yell? (1989)")
- "A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET" (110A: "R.E.M.: alarming to the teens (1984)")
Todd Michael "Leon" Bridges (born July 13, 1989) is an American soul singer, songwriter and record producer. He is best known for his 2015 song "Coming Home", which received regular airplay and was also a Top 10 Most Viral Track on Spotify. Bridges' debut album, also titled Coming Home, was released on June 23, 2015, on Columbia Recordsand subsequently nominated for Best R&B Album at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards.
• • •
What in the world is "ERE while"!?!?! (32A: Quaint lead-in to while). It's erstwhile, and ERE long. I read (and teach) a lot of stuff that has "ERE" in it, and "ERE while" does not strike my ears as very in-the-language for 1622 (to say nothing of 2022). Bizarre cluing move, that one. And crossing FORE!? Which is clued as [Front], which, frankly, is also pretty "quaint" ... that little section was unpleasant (and also, unfortunately, the last section I filled in). And then there's YESTER (56D: Lead-in to day or year)... [weary exhale]. The fill is definitely struggling in places today. I want to like VALSPEAK, but it's weird—in a puzzle like this, that doesn't appear to have a very up-to-date sensibility or strong sense of slanginess, I just assume that VALSPEAK was the semi-accidental byproduct of software armed with a giant wordlist. Still, however it got in the puzzle, it's definitely one of the high points—and a NYTXW debut (84D: Slangy SoCal dialect). My general aversion to billionairism means that things like 1.3 million-dollar CIGARs (99D: The world's most expensive one, the Gurkha Royal Courtesan, costs over $1.3 million) and the names of the characters on "Succession" (89A: One of the Roys on "Succession" = KENDALL) are going to be meaningless to me (this is not a knock against "Succession," which is very good, I hear—I just can't stand to watch another second of filmed entertainment detailing the lives of the morally decrepit 0.0001 percent ... at least not in its modern-day incarnation; which is to say, I am happily watching HBO's "Gilded Age"). As usual, the names in this puzzle were my only real stumbling block, and "stumbling" is an overstatement today. The theme was so incredibly easy, and the themers so incredibly long, that the grid opened up quite readily and didn't give me any opportunities to get truly stuck.
- 72D: Harvard dropouts, maybe? (ARS) — no letter looks dumber written out than "AR." This is one of the few times I'd say this, but I'm saying it: "Clue it as Latin, please."
- 20D: Onetime dentist's supply (ETHER) — this sounds like an erstwhile dentist just has some of the stuff lying around his garage. "Herb? Yeah, he retired, and now he just potters around the house ... you know, gardens, plays with his model trains, stockpiles ETHER..."
- 78D: Aid in putting together a fall collection (RAKE) — I like this clue. Nice fashion fake-out.
- 42D: School for the college-bound (PREP) — me: "... all of them?" This clue is weird. It's not 1950. All high schools PREP kids for college. I would've preferred [___ school] to this weird, unnecessarily snobby clue.
- 116A: "Louisiana ___," music show that helped launch Elvis's career ("HAYRIDE") — yikes, this pop culture obscurity crossed with AYA briefly felt threatening. But there was really no other way to go except with the "Y."
Last year, my friend Rachel Fabi organized a charity fundraising puzzle project called "These Puzzles Fund Abortion." Her fundraising efforts were so successful (> $60K raised in 2021) that she's back this year with "These Puzzles Fund Abortion Too"—fifteen original puzzles by top constructors, and all you gotta do is donate at least $15 to one of the seven abortion funds listed on their National Abortion Access Fund-A-Thon page. The need is dire (see Texas, the Supreme Court, etc.) and the puzzle quality is sure to be stellar. Here's the link. Go do it now before you forget. And here's Rachel's announcement of the project on Twitter:
The campaign page for "These Puzzles Fund Abortion Too" (#TPFA2) is available now! Donate between now and the pack drop on 3/1 to pre-order and ensure that you get your puzzles in the first release.https://t.co/0Xu393fNAM#FThon22 pic.twitter.com/H3qQEjFg8n
— Rachel Fabi, PhD (@faBioethics) February 25, 2022
March 1 pic.twitter.com/ScBAMhA4gA
— Rachel Fabi, PhD (@faBioethics) February 1, 2022
Enjoy the rest of your Sunday,
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
Save And Share :
128 comments:
I suppose the "gram" part of the title should have given it away (I bet there's "someone" here who caught on immediately...no names, but the first, last, and middle initial is Z), but it wasn't until I was about 2/3 of the way done before I realized the themer movies were anagrams of the clues. D'oh.
Since movies were in the spotlight, I had to enjoy this. And it definitely was not 26A (TOO HARD).
Didn't bother anagramming though. Just filled in the movies when I had enough letters.
Because I like anagrams. I like word anagrams. Throw a sentence or a title anagram at me and I'll walk right outta here, take my ball, and go home.
Eh. Who'm I kidding? I'd probably obsess over every one until I won or hell froze over and that's just not a good look.
The fill was also pretty good, with a minimum of ESE, except maybe when ESE (61A) actually appeared in the grid. But at least it was clued cleverly which makes all the diff.
Sophomore effort from Mr. Polonsky and he's 2 for 2 in my book. Well done, sir!
🧠🧠
🎉🎉🎉
P.S.
@bocamp @GILL 🥰
Anagrams and movies! Can it get any better?
Sorry @Rex, I thought it was clever and fun. But what do I know?
For the third week in a row,I encountered no naticks in the NYT Sunday crossword. Somebody pinch me, I must be dreaming... either that or somebody must finally be editing these puzzles!
Yup, not TOO HARD. Pretty smooth and mildly amusing , liked it more than @Rex did.
Too easy to be satisfying. Akin to @frantic_sloth, solved without ever realizing the anagram cluing. Minimal cross letters revealed movie titles with little effort. NE corner was the only section that gave cause for pause.
To be or not to be: that is the question, whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
=
In one of the Bard's best-thought-of tragedies, our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life turns rotten.
Now that's an anagram!
Rex, the sporcle quiz you link to was created by today's constructor, right? At xwordinfo.com, he talks about the many years he put into creating the anagrams, and lists all those entries that he didn't use in the puzzle.
I had a big boo boo. I had CARRIBEAN instead of CARIBBEAN. Which meant the humanitarian org. was UNRCEF and the company with sound financials was IOSE. Ouch me!
[Spelling Bee: td 13 min to pg, then 0.]
The only vaguely "fun" thing to do with a puzzle like this is, first, fill in all the movie anagrams without using any crosses and, second, ignore the rest of the puzzle and move on to the Acrostic. So that's what I did. I have no idea what else is in the puzzle besides the six movie titles.
fwiw the sporcle quiz seems to have been written by the constructor himself, so it's not like he just went and plucked them from the internet. From his constructor notes it seems like he legitimately found them with scrabble tiles.
I kinda agree with Rex on most of this puzzle, but I also think he missed the boat occasionally.
Like his comment on 20 D Onetime dentist’s supply. Rex completely missed that the clue was referencing bygone dentists in general, rather than a current dentist and his/her bygone supply.
PIRATESOFTHECARIBBEAN brought to mind an old pun (and in case you don’t know, I’m a punster ad nauseum). The charges levied for fruit pastries by the sisters of the mother of the colonial namesake of a modern US state:
The pie rates of Penn’s aunts.
I remember trick-or-treating for UNICEF (14D). Does this still happen? I very much hope so, but I also doubt it. Please let me know that I’m wrong.
I thought it was a good, NOTHARD, Sunday puzzle. Thank you, Sheldon Polonsky.
I don’t care for anagrams and took the easy way out. Filled in enough letters and got my movies the obvious way. Easy peasy. Got a few of them just from the clues without having to unscramble a bunch of letters.
I’ll pass on future puzzles like this. Can’t remember the last time I said that, especially on a Sunday.
Oh, most of all, I love the backstory. Here, a dozen years ago, Sheldon, a passionate lover of wordplay and movies, can’t resist the challenge of anagramming movie titles – but the anagrams have to hint toward the movie itself. The best part is that he does this with no aid except for Scrabble tiles! No computer in sight. I can see him now, finding connections, arranging and re-arranging those tiles, not satisfied with anything less than success.
This would seem to be a difficult task, but Sheldon forged on. Based on his notes in XwordInfo, not to mention this puzzle, it’s clear he came up with at least 27 movie title anagrams. And then comes the kicker – two years ago, Sheldon tries his hand at making crosswords, gets a Thursday puzzle in the NYT, and then goes after a Sunday grid using his anagrams. The NYT team has him make many changes, where even one change is no small ask on a Sunday puzzle. They even ask him to come up with new theme answers.
So this puzzle has a history, and it’s infused with sweat and perhaps tears, and certainly wit and persistence – and out pops this beauty, fun in theme and cluing. But OMG look at what went into it! Wow, Sheldon, is all I can say. Thank you for your passion and effort. I had a grand old time with this, and, knowing what you put into it, I am gushing with appreciation!
Funny how anagrams just don’t float my boat (mornin’, @chefwen), unless they’re stuff like dormitory – dirty room.
I did like the Streep one - I swear, she was brilliant in that movie.
But I enjoyed the solve; several things had me staring off into space and thinking. ..
EARL rhymes with girl. Merl, whorl, hurl. Pick a vowel, any vowel.
And HEREBY is an adverb. My gut reaction was to question its adverbness, but after ruminating, I guess I agree. You can replace in with other adverbs:
"Ask" can now be used as a noun, HEREBY becoming a constant target of grammar snobs.
"Ask" can now be used as a noun, unfortunately/predictably/ becoming a constant target of grammar snobs.
This article about parts of speech reminded me that at is a verb now. Like if someone says something controversial on a podcast and then hastens to explain. . . they’ll say something like Y’all please don’t at me, meaning don’t come after them on social media. How cool is that?! I’ve never atted anyone, but I can see myself atting in the future.
@egsforbreakfast – terrific oronym!
@Frantic – I loved the clue for ESE. So you could argue that human chorionic gonadotropin, produced primarily by syncytiotrophoblastic cells, stimulates the corpus luteum to produce progesterone is, well, obese.
Oh goody, more anagrams. Yawn.
Rex
I really enjoy your daily puzzle writed ups!
I, maybe over half of your readers are STRONGLY opposed to abortion!! Where in the constitution is that condoned. I was sure disappointed to see you taut that lady, who is so openly advocating Killing viable babies
dave
The puzzle snobs are out in force today!
I missed the anagrams entirely, silly me. Must've been because I was doing this puzzle "late" (8 pm) last night. (I was snoozing on the couch by 9:30!)
Ah, The Towering Inferno. I just spent some of last weekend watching parts of those 1970's movies by the "master of disaster" Irwin Allen. A bit of trivia- The pictures of Steve McQueen and Paul Newman in the movie poster are strategically placed to achieve co-top billing: "To provide dual top billing, the credits were arranged diagonally, with McQueen lower left and Newman upper right. Thus, each appeared to have 'first' billing depending on whether the credit was read left-to-right or top-to-bottom. This was the first time this "staggered but equal" billing was used in a movie..." (Wikipedia)
Congrats on your first Sunday, Sheldon!
I think "Onetime" pretty clearly refers to supply. Dentist's could have been dentists' or dental. The clue is about the ether not the dentist.
I appreciate what @Lewis said, but I really did not care for this as a solving experience.
Actually only about 40 percent of Americans support laws restricting a woman's right to control her body and her healthcare. Nice try.
Well, I for one found the theme funny enough that at one point I laughed out loud, disturbing the wife’s Spelling Bee.
Another Sunday I could handle, which is always cool. I wasn’t thrilled about having a trivia-based theme, but Pirates and Meryl were so obvious that they dropped right in like Monday fill-in-the blanks. I only really struggled with the fill that looked nonsensical (AYA, OEIL, HAI, TAM) and the only WoE for me today was GARRET which I had not encountered before. I think this is like my fourth unassisted Sunday (and second in as many months).
No abbreviation in the clue for 107A (PCS) and kind of a phone-it-in clue for ESE. Seriously Will, if you are going to allow a junky fill like ESE, at least give it a benign clue and don’t draw attention to it.
Does anyone else here gain way more insight from reading the posts by @Lewis than from perusing Rex’s whiny perseverations ? Rex would do well to let @Lewis guest host his blog once a week or so.
I am strongly in favor of abortion rights and applaud Rex for having the courage to openly do so, knowing he's going to get a lot of angry responses.
Not for me. Solved it as a themeless - PIRATES was the toughest one to get. So much real estate used up with the themers. Not much AWE from the oddball trivia and flat cluing. Wanted Hurston before MORRISON. I did like HAY RIDE and EMPANADA both in the bottom of the grid.
No thanks.
I enjoyed the puzzle. The only time I needed anagram help was when I came up one letter short on the answer to 110A. Then I noticed the clue included two A's, and NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET became A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. And the crosses made a lot more sense.
Favorite Hidden Diagonal Word (HDW) and clue from the Sunday grid:
A lot of folks do it today
Answer: PRAY (begins in 107A square and moves to the SW)
I may be dense but what does ESE mean?
I don't really like anagrams but it didn't matter here. I pretty much wrote all the movies in with a couple of crosses. Finished well below my Sunday average in 33 minutes.
I get no kick from anagrams, so solved this as a puzzle with unclued movie titles. Not bad for that. Liked being reminded of All Fours, although I wondered if that answer has any meaning to non-Brits.
Nice clue for ERATA.
Awful clue for ARS.
STRIKER screams out for a soccer clue.
Common error in today’s (very easy) acrostic, but an unforgivable one given the subject matter.
Gunner: Some languages end in '-ese', like Portuguese. Then again, I can't think of many others that do!
That the constructor wrote the Sporcle quiz is pretty funny.
@Gunner - Scroll down to definition 2 of the third entry.
Thx Sheldon, for this outstanding Sun puz! :)
Med.
Slow and steady all the way, with no major stumbling blocks.
Wasn't particularly on Sheldon's wavelength, but as 'hoped', it wasn't TOO HARD.
There's always a sigh of relief at the conclusion of of Sun. solve; just so many ways things can go amiss. Whew & phew!
Totally missed the anagram feature (hi @Colin 6:51 AM).
ESE: (ending for languages or 'tongues')
"Used to form adjectives and nouns describing things and characteristics of a city, region, or country, such as the people and the language spoken by these people." (Wiktionary)
Had fun doing this one; good and satisfying journey. :)
Fun and relatively easy acrostic today. Once again, enjoyed solving from the top.
@okanaganer 👍 for 0's yd & td
___
yd pg: 25:14 / W: 3*
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
A "tongue" or language, often ends in "ese" i.e. end, or tip. Chinese, etc.
Thank you for the The Puzzles info! Donated
Has anyone else caught the typo in the Times intro to the puzzle? It says that 119 Across took the puzzle maker half an hour to think up. Obviously they meant to 110 Across.
Another instance when Rex throws out a reckless irresponsible and untrue implication of plagiarism.
When you suggest that someone is doing something so unethical, you have an obligation to check your facts first. Michael Sharp did not, and, by not doing so, maligned someone.
Hey All !
Ready?
Awwwwwwwww...
That's the sound I made when I went back after not getting the Happy Music, and saw that my IpI/pARPARK was wrong. And I know CARPARK! Blast! Stupid one-letter DNF.
So Sheldon found these anagrams by his lonesome using Scrabble tiles? Holy cow, persistent, or obsessed? Har. Major props for that. I would've taken the easy road and Googed for them! And you say he had a bunch of others? Wow. Nothing to POOHPOOH. (BTW, why isn't that accepted in SB?)
The "massive calves" clue had me looking for a large animal. Gray whale? Too long. Nice misdirect there.
Had meRLS for EARLS first. Gave myself a chuckle. Had a headslap moment with S_LVE, with its clue Crack, and kept thinking SALVE? Let out a "duh!" when I got SOLVE. Last section to fall was my DNF area, East Center. Tough clues in there. GARRET is a WOE.
Started off quite slow, with just a smattering of answers hither and yon. Thought this might take a while, but ended up at 38 minutes and change, which is actually quite quick for me. So apparently not TOO HARD, as that clue suggests. YES TER-ee.
Only GRRR was that ICI. Icky!
yd -9 (no even getting to g 😢), should'ves 4
Four F's (all in Themers)
RooMonster
DarrinV
Didn't figure out the theme until after I finished. I think I'll be laughing at that RAKE clue for the rest of sunday.
How did folks miss the theme to this one if they read the title? My awesome detective skills seem to indicate that, I'm pretty sure of this, they didn't read the title.
I like anagrams , Dave Barry always seems to come up with the best ones. This was a smooth run down an easy slope with just a couple of proper name bare patches--AYA, OLSEN as clued, LEON as clued. I read a two-volume biography of Elvis, which is a good way to find out about Louisiana HAYRIDE.
Only real glitches were TIC off before TEE off (I know, I know) and HERETO before HEREBY, otherwise an extra-speedy Sunday.
I appreciate all the effort, SP but for me this was, well, a Sunday Puzzle. Thanks for some fun.
Pleasant Sunday exercise. Appreciate the backstory.
I am not impressed with anagrams (after five letter words I am not so good solving them) and movie titles (yet it surprises me how many I recognize). So this puzzle felt blah to me. Yet, I can appreciate why the puzzle should be published for those who respond positively to this type of thing. Can I appreciate the difficulty in constructing it? I think I can. But that doesn't equate to greater fondness.
Neither does forcing abortion into the write up. I don't care how others here feel about it. It's just that those types of subjects don't belong here. Or so I feel. If one complains about other entries that cause one to feel down, I think one should practice what one preaches. That's too forceful of a statement, but hopefully you get the gist.
I know that many people on this blog detest anagrams, but I can't believe they bothered any of you today. This puzzle is so easy that all the movies popped right up from the crosses -- no anagramming required. And if there's no need to bother one's pretty little head about anagramming, why give it another moment's thought -- that's what I say. Personally, I sort of like anagrams, though maybe not ones quite this long, and I assure you that I didn't use any of them to solve or check any of them after the fact. They could be completely inaccurate and I wouldn't know.
The clue that most provoked my curiosity was "Tis an ___ cook that cannot lick his own fingers." (34D) What on earth was the Bard talking about? The "massive calves" clue was the most perplexing; I really should go and read up on GLACIERS, since I don't understand it at all. And for "Unlike this puzzle, we hope", I was all set to write in TOO EASY, only it didn't work. Aha -- TOO HARD. You needn't have worried, Sheldon -- it's certainly not that.
A pleasant and painless puzzle that went down like vanilla ice cream.
I had no idea that the movies were anagrams of the clues until I read the first comment here by Frantic sloth. Thank you, because I could not figure out what the trick was. As Rex so aptly wrote, the movies easily slid into the spaces with just a few crosses so those were no problem. Pretty easy for a Sunday.
Didn't catch on to the anagram bit at all but just assumed the clues were weird. I still had a good time with this one, and would rank it as one of the better Sundays we have had in a long while. Definitely my POW.
What the hell is in that cigar ???
Anyone unfamiliar with the term may enjoy looking into the Trompe L'Oeil method. We had a neighbor paint a corner of my daughters' bedroom with a girl on a swing and it was absolutely amazing.
Hand up for knowing what was going on from the title. Hand up for reducing all the theme clues to “A movie.”
@Nancy - Movie titles are too trivial to even be trivia. I get how the constructor enjoyed the exercise, but I wish he had taken his own words to heart, The fact is, I hate anagram puzzles… Others love these types of themes, but not my cuppa.
@Ari Stotle - I, too, always assume anagrams are probably lifted or borrowed or stolen from somewhere else. That’s because it takes maybe a whole nanosecond to google all kinds of anagram sites and even sites that will do the anagramming for you. But I know the difference between assuming something is true and knowing something is true. I also know the difference between “can be lifted” and “was lifted.” Rex was talking about his reaction to what he solved, he didn’t avow anything about whether his reaction was aligned with how the puzzle came to be. Besides, Rex was quite clear that the source of the anagrams isn’t the point, all you end up with, whether the anagrams are original or not, is a few movie titles in your grid.
And it’s even possible to have the same assumptions about the source of the anagrams and appreciate the creativity of making a sensible crossword out of them. Making a crossword is several degrees of difficulty harder than just coming up with anagrams. Even if the constructor had gotten the themes from an anagram site I’m not sure that it would be plagiarism. Creativity is always building on prior creativity. The point where some borrowed or learned idea is changed enough to be new work is not always clear.
Anon 8:30: Only Portuguese? How about Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Nepalese, and Burmese?
@TJS -- I was really, really wondering about that CIGAR (99D) too!!!!
When did I finally discover that this was a puzzle of anagrams? The title did not make any bells ring. The theme clues didn't either; in fact, the use of R.E.M. had me thinking music in movies - did REM feature in a movie? Did they have a theme song in a movie? (I did get the movie part of the theme from the "cine" in the title, but not the "grams".)
I did a lot of fruitless hopping around in my random solve and it filled in slowly. Am I the only person who finds feeling "!!!!" (30D) is more akin to Ack than AWE? And "Louisiana Hayride" sounds like a perfectly inane music show (116A). Now that I re-read the clue for 84D, VAL SPEAK makes more sense when I see SoCal rather than "social" !!!!
Thanks, Sheldon Polonsky.
No one cares
@L 10:23. About what?
The pirates of the Caribbean, far from winning my heart as a prize, sank it. Anagrams of movie titles as a theme? For me, anagrams rise to the level of "scourge of solvers," but, dutiful solver that I am, I made an effort at pretending it was just large crossword with particularly easy long fill-ins. I made it through the inferno but then flagged and decided to cheer myself by coming here to read your comments.
Lots of good looking Wordle starters in the grid today. Will I choose a good one? Luck will tell.
@pabloinnh (9:19 AM) wrote:
"How did folks miss the theme to this one if they read the title? My awesome detective skills seem to indicate that, I'm pretty sure of this, they didn't read the title."
Here's how: I always check the title, then in the heat of battle, promptly forget it – unless I'm struggling with the themers. And, yes, for me it's a technical dnf when I don't revisit the theme/title at the end of the solve to try to make sense of the overall picture. So, bottom line: your point is taken, and I appreciate the kick in the pants. 👍
Btw, my lame excuse is, I was nearing bedtime, and my energy had dwindled after a long day of puzzle-solving.
___
td pg: 7:29 / W: 3*
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Oh, wow.....Just wow. This got my clap with glee Sunday award:
So like I get the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN and wondered why it was so easy. I then sniffed, and scratched around looking at the clue. Hmmmmm what could it be?
I get ITS A WONDERFUL LIFE as easy as bees sitting on your knees and went back to sniff some more.
Oh, good gravy on my frijoles negros...Sheldon made these into anagrams....They had to be. The waft of good aromas filled my nostrils and I seriously did the fandango tango barefooted.
I haven't read all the comments yet because I don't want to see a negative. I will after I write my usual tome:
I was like totally.... as if it's grody for some of you for shur, I'll wanna go back to slangy SoCal and drink an espresso with a straw. I'll ask the waitress to put tea in it.
There really wasn't much I didn't know or like. I had trouble with some of the board game thingies but they came easily.
I looked at 49A: PUTON is PUTIN with a bit of deception, no? I learned all about the BAHA men and their dogs, right here on this blog. GRR an SNARL...I've seen all these movies; A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET was my least favorite because I hate scary movies. Love me some DEVIL wearing PRADA and holy bunions...a CIGAR costs 1.3 million?
This was tres wonderful, Sheldon, and it must've been an Oso to construct.
Hope you bless us with some more of your cleverness.
Wow
Easy but fun.
LOL
Same, once I saw anagrams I bailed. Fortunately I was only a few minutes in.
Seems a little tone deaf to have NYET as a solution right now, but maybe I'm thinking too hard.
Easy and fast but not much sparkle.
Meh.
(Don’t mind anagrams and might have thought it was more zippy if I had known.j
😏🦖🦖🦖😏
I agree, Rex, the movie title anagrams were dull in the extreme. They fell into place so easily, I kept thinking, I must be missing something. I filled in PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN letter by letter from the crosses, thinking all the while, This is not going to be just PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, is it? There’s going to be a joke, a clever twist somewhere, right? Nope. Just the title. Thud.
I balked at EREWHILE, too. I thought, They made that up. I’ve never encountered that word before. But Wiktionary, confirms that it is a word and that and in all likelihood I’ve heard or read it several times before:
Erewhile. (archaic or poetic). Some time ago; beforehand; formerly.
Quotations: 1595, Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, “I am as fair now as I was erewhile.”
Live and (re-)learn.
I don’t think Rex missed that about the dentist, I think he just said the phrasing made it sound that way, resulting in a funny image. I’ve said before that there’s a lot about Rex that turns me off but his sense of humor is definitely not one of them.
When do you think this was printed?
Not a big fan of anagrams, but I am a big fan of movies. so I liked the puzzle overall and appreciated the fact that it wasn’t TOO HARD. I’m also impressed that the constructor came up with these anagrams using Scrabble tiles instead of a computer. Wow. That’s some super Scrabbling.
The dilemma of the $1.3 million CIGAR. If you smoke it, it’s gone a few puffs later. If you don’t smoke it, what’s the point of having it? If I’m going to splurge, I’d rather have $1.3 million Van Gogh. At least I’d have something interesting to look at.
Ari stotle is right.Rex smeared the constructor. No, he didn’t “avow”anything.He didn’t have to, he made the suggestion, then proceeded to bolster his case. That’s a smear, regardless of what Rex’s defenders say.
But it’s Rex’s blog, so his is the only opinion about what “belongs here” that matters, especially since he famously doesn’t read comments and doesn’t care what we think. You are free to leave if it offends you. I, for one, appreciate the heads-up and will donate.
Having Lenin and nyet in the puzzle this week seems like some pretty awful timing.
Agree completely with Rex on this. I caught on early that they were anagrams (I don’t read the title before solving on the app), and was a bit disappointed. Like Rex, I think they only work if they are really clever, and like Rex, I think only A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET was really clever. (It’s the only one of these movies I haven’t seen, and I got slowed a bit by not knowing it had an “A.”) That one made me smile. The others were tortured or dull.
I assume the “yell” in the Meg Ryan clue refers to her faux orgasm in the restaurant, showing Billy Crystal how easily women can fake it (and prompting the classic “I’ll have what she’s having” line). On a rainy day at a weeklong family gathering when that movie came out, we picked it for a movie to which we could take my prim Catholic grandmother without worry. We cringed during that scene. Afterwards, she asked, “what was wrong with her in that restaurant?” Oh dear. Never really wanted to think about whether Grandma had ever experienced that sensation.
Anyway, despite my complaints about the puzzle, I am so glad that many of you enjoyed it, especially after hearing how much work the constructor put into it. And I agree Rex should apologize to him for the accusation of plagiarism, or at least laziness.
“Creativity is always building on prior creativity ”
That was a claim made earlier on the blog.
It beggars belief. I mean, wow!
This commentor just “avowed” there’s no such thing as an original thought.
That is quite a claim.
Out of curiosity, I wonder what prior creativity Newton was building on when he developed his thoughts on gravity.
Or Godel and his incompleteness theorems, or
Claude Shannon and his information theory or
Best of all, and the irony is so rich,
I wonder whose work Aristotle was building on when he developed logical argument?
@Anagramophobes. You didn't have to "do" an anagram to solve this puzzle. It's your loss if you bailed early.
Any puzzle with “THETOWERINGINFERNO” in it is OK with me!
I solved this and wondered where the anagrams were. This was fine by me as I don't care for themes. The 22 A clue just seemed off and when I realized that the themes were just straight up movie titles I stuck to the fill and solved without looking at the theme clues. It was more fun to chip away at the fill and recognize the themes as soon as I had enough crosses. I didn't make a conscious effort to avoid the theme it was simply an enjoyable way to solve. Looking over the theme clues after solving I could see I hadn't missed much.
yd -0
Wanderlust,
Well said. I too appreciate the heads up. It reminds to pray an extra rosary to combat the evil of abortion and increase my donation to a crisis pregnancy center. Thank you!
I immediately grokked that the clues were anagrams of movies and, like many others here, proceeded to solve using as many down answers as necessary to fill in the film titles. Only after completing the solve did I reread the clues and realize that they also had some "connection" to the movie they were anagrammed to.
Hand up for thinking @Rex owes the constructer an apology.
Wordle 253 3/6
⬛⬛🟩🟨⬛
⬛🟨🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I like to think they're honoring the anti war protesters, Tolstoy and Eugene Mirman
Men start facetious idea — United States of America
@OFL:
All high schools PREP kids for college.
Baloney. In small towns, which means sending the kiddies off to megapopulation 'regional' HS, may be so. In the sense that 1% of those rubes intend to go to college rather than work the farm or fix trucks or run a meth lab (look up where most are. you may be surprised). In Big Cities/Towns, HS is a number of separate schools, at least two: one as college prep and the other as 'tech' or 'trade'. My NE city, ages ago, had 5: Cathedral for the Catholics (and, of course, the most pregnancies; true fact), Classical for the college intended, Technical which more or less corresponds to today's 'vocational' HS, Commerce for the girls (mostly) who intended to be office workers (not kidding), and Trade for the auto mechanics to be.
Really Big Cities may have an (or more than one, depending) Arts HS.
alas, EPIGRAM got stuck in my head; luckily the clues were, mostly, transparent enough. given the lengths, hard to see how knowing that they are anagrams of each other did much good.
@dumbnose:
kind of agree, but it's likely that the puzzle was set (in type) and printed before Vlad the Impaler went Full Hitler.
we've had this kind of kvetch many times.
💯me too!
Romeo and Juliet, Act IV, scene II
[Enter CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, Nurse, and two
Servingmen]
CAPULET: So many guests invite as here are writ.
[Exit First Servant]
Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.
Second Servant: You shall have none ill, sir; for I'll try if they
can lick their fingers.
CAPULET: How canst thou try them so?
Second Servant: Marry, sir, 'tis an ill cook that cannot lick his
own fingers: therefore he that cannot lick his
fingers goes not with me.
CAPULET: Go, be gone.
Romeo and Juliet, Act IV, scene II
The point is that if the cook can't lick his own fingers, he doesn't have any confidence in his own co
Can anyone explain the "R.E.M.: alarming to the teens" cluing? R.E.M. spelled out that way has to be the band, not the sleep cycle, right?
We had a junior officer on our ship who was about five feet tall. He had a tendency to erupt in anger. We called him The Sawed-Off Inferno.
@Frantic: So glad to have you back with us, I wish we could bring back some of the other AWOLers. Anybody know where @JD is hiding?
@egs 1:30. Provides my usual morning laugh "The pie rates of Penn's
aunts" made my laughing feet do the CHA cha.
@Lewis 5:33. As usual...providing my morning brightness and sunshine.
@Loren 5:48...I HEREBY pronounce you the" fer sure ...awesome", lady.
@Nancy 9:33. I also gave the stink eye to the Bards ILL. Why, pray tell, would he sayeth that?
@Wanderlust 12:10. Your faux orgasm story about your prim grandmother and her "what's wrong with her in that restaurant" was another coffee nostril coffee spit on my computer screen.
@Anon1:16 - I assume it’s the sleep cycle because NIGHTMAREs occur during R.E.M. sleep. But having never seen the movie I am hardly certain.
Nice pleasant Sunday morning with this one. Took in the anagram aspect of the clues/titles, but can't say that helped - the movies all fell right in, with the exception of the NIGHTMARE around my forgetting it was 'ANIGHTMARE'. The fill was a bit tougher.
I worked for UNICEF. My kids did trick or treat with those orange boxes. In fact, I did. It still didn't fall in til late, as 'humanitarian org' only sparked relief oriented NGOs. Made harder by assuming that the US Census had a BUdget. Was always a little amazed at the reaction my sweet young kids in costume got holding up the box and saying "trick or treat for unicef'. Sometimes it was a warm comment and some change, other times it was 'SNARLS, I hate the UN'. My son asked one such person 'why?' and got a grumpy 'GRRR, ask your father' followed by the door closing. @egs, I think the tradition continues, though haven't seen any kids with them for awhile now.
Had no idea HEREBY could be an adverb, and thanks @LMS for working that out.
First thought for one seeking a new agreement was 'MLBPA'. Really really want to see some baseball soon, but fully expecting MLB and MLBPA to dig in their heels (and happen to think the latter should), so am not optimistic.
and the 'teens' bit is happenstance, I expect, in that the movie is about (I suppose, didn't see any of them either) teenagers for teenagers and the letters were otherwise leftovers. no idea whether R.E.M. was a teen idol outfit like Nirvana?
NO OINK DREAD! [An M&A flick fave]*
Anagrams are a kinda dicey subject for a SunPuz theme. Not very funny -- but yet real impressive, that the constructioneer could anagram movie titles that are so lengthy and yet also at least semi-APT.
staff weeject pick: ESE. Totally luvly raised-by-wolves clue: {Tip of the tongue?}. Primo stuff, acknowledgin them -ese tongue (lingo) tips, most notably crosswordESE, of course.
fave sparklers: BUREAU. CHESSSET. GORILLA. them calvin GLACIERS.
Kinda also oddly drawn to VALSPEAK. Maybe cuz {Praise, in Trump-ese??} could = VLADSPEAK. Just sayin. (And go, Volodymyr … the good V.)
Xanth, Mr. Polonsky dude.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
p.s. * = Donnie Darko.
**gruntz**
How many other strings can be made from a 21 length string? That is, from fixed set of 21, not by, additionally picking from all 26 each time? The simple way is just the factorial of 21, viz. 21!. That's a big number. On this computer the closest I can get (in individual digits) is: 5.109094217×10¹⁹ . That's a big number.
Well, I've been waiting all day and so far no one has stepped up, so I am forced to point this out myself.
Here we are discussing a crossword puzzle and the aptness of ESE without once mentioning CROSSWORDESE.
Honestly. I don't know if I should TSK or TUT.
Clue for ARS tickled my funny bone.
Still grinning….
@Anon 12:12 re Goedel: Boole, Frege, Russell/Whitehead, Hilbert & Ackermann, Peano, Zermelo / Fraenkel...
re Newton, Wren,Hook Galileo and Halley.
Giant steps are but steps.
A clever, well thought-out puz.
I rarely agree with rex or his dyspeptic take on the world, but kudos to him for
his shout out to Rachel Fabi and "These puzzles fund abortion."
And to "no one" @ 6:10: I suggest you read the plurality decision in Roe v Wade, which fully and plainly describes the constitutional right to privacy from governmental intrusion into private decisions. So yes, a woman's right to abortion is Constitutional, and has been since the 1970s, although this current SCOTUS will certainly dismantle that right within the next year.
Count me among those who wonder about that $1.3 million CIGAR.
How and why does such a thing exist?? Who decides its worth?? And will I ever be able to afford one?
Answers: No reason. Nobody knows. And just no.
Don't care if EREwhile is a real word - still clanged for me.
@LMS 🤣 Don't at me with your obese. In other words, at ESE, soldier!
@GILL 123pm Gracias, amiga. I think @JD is on a bender with @JOHN X. There could be no other explanation.
@Unknown:
What the Right Wingnuts won't tell you: by destroying the interpretation of the Constitution with a right to privacy (they claim it's a figment, since the word 'privacy' isn't written) their Right Wingnut spying on citizens (and by Big Bidnezz) will come to full flower, and the next Right Wingnut Republican administration will go Full Stasi on us. Democracy is easy to destroy: Turkey, Hungary, et al.
Wow indeed!
@pabloinnh. Frantic made the ESE connection in the very first post at 12:01 AM.
@Pete - Are you sure apples weren’t involved? I think Newton and calculus are especially informative. That Newton and Liebniz “invented” calculus at the same time is a great example of the intellectual milieu being right for a breakthrough. Math is great fodder for the history of ideas. From the concept of “zero,” (I still remember being absolutely gobsmacked when I learned that zero hasn’t always been a universally known concept - thanks Fibonacci) to π, when and how societies become aware of ideas is fascinating. We do like our mythic figures, but I generally subscribe to the idea that when the time is right discoveries are nearly inevitable.
@Frantic Sloth & Others - Are you saying you don’t have a million dollars to burn? For whatever reason @Frantic’s comment reminded me of a recent Tweet (no idea by whom now) demanding that the media “Normalize calling all billionaires ‘oligarchs’.” I like the idea.
Actually, it was my gain of my own time.
@Z:
a recent Tweet (no idea by whom now) demanding that the media “Normalize calling all billionaires ‘oligarchs’.”
A quick innterTubes search didn't bring up any contemporary reportage from the Progressive Era using 'oligarch' to describe trusts and such. Given the Progressives writing at the time (Sinclair, Steffens, Tarbell, et al), I'll bet my bottom dollar it could be found. (According to dictionary.com, the word was coined around 1600.) But this did.
"This is the argument presented in Heather Cox Richardson’s new book, How the South Won the Civil War. Throughout American history, she contends, the forces of oligarchy and democracy have been involved in a mortal struggle for the nation’s future, and she wants to show how the visions of oligarchy have often won out—how, in other words, we got from the era of emancipation and Confederate defeat to the presidency of Donald Trump. "
here: https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/heather-cox-richardson-how-south-won-civil-war-review/
I am troubled by the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to become a member of SCOTUS. Two things. She was not just humbled but "truly humbled" by the appointment. She attributed her success to "god". The high court does not need another religious nut.
@Z:
From the concept of “zero,” (I still remember being absolutely gobsmacked when I learned that zero hasn’t always been a universally known concept - thanks Fibonacci)
Please explain. I learned that The West (well, Europe at the time) got the 0 idea from the Arabs; you know, Arabic Numerals? the wiki cites Egypt, circa 1770 BC as the first use of 0. What's Fibonacci got to do with it?
Hey @Roo
POOH POOH is two words, so unacceptable in SB.
@Euclid - Fibonacci is the guy who brought zero to Europe from the Arabs. If you click on my zero link you’ll read, The number zero as we know it arrived in the West circa 1200, most famously delivered by Italian mathematician Fibonacci (aka Leonardo of Pisa), who brought it, along with the rest of the Arabic numerals, back from his travels to north Africa.
@The Cleaver - Yep.
"ENGR" is an abbreviation for "engineer," not "engineering," which is the "E" in "STEM". That, with a number of other mess-ups in this and other recent puzzles makes me think that the editing has been slack lately.
Incredible
Since I onky look for the constructor or constructors, and do not read notes or titles until after a solve, I missed the anagrams completely. Upon seeing the title and its very clever hint, I say kudos, Sheldon Polonsky! This is a masterful feat if construction even without those amazing anagrams. The titles just adds the whipped cream and the cherry on too of my Sunday sundae!! I look forward to much more from Mr. P.
Missing the anagrams did not make the solve more difficult, though. The clues and fill were exceptionally well balanced to a oid any deadly Naticks or other crossworldly quicksand. This was an excellent Sunday. Had some clever wordplay - “tongues” for “languages” being the best of the week in my opinion. Indeed the solve was not TOO HARD. Just an all around fine Sunday.
Could someone please explain the answer to Harvard dropout? I don’t get it. What does ARS stand for?
I'm pro-choice. (and would be labeled liberal-leaning on most issues by the label-makers) But still amused how Uncle Rex gets his undies in a bundle when he whiffs the remotest allusion to anything outside his personal PC fiefdom. As Bill Mahre constantly harps on, the SJW extremists are often their own worst enemies.
What the hell is in that cigar ??? Self-importance, wrapped in self-delusion.
@Beth64 - ARS as in the letter R and in the stereotypical Boston accent the R sounds in “Harvard” would be dropped, making them “dropouts.”
@Beth64
Supposedly. many people from that area of Massachusetts drop their ARS, and pronounce it Hahvahd
Before you jump on the pro/anti comments, read the full 6:20 AM comment out loud. Then say “said (the name of the 6:20 AM commenter) ever.” Well played!!
@Z, @JC66-The dropped ARS are added to words like "sofa" and "Cuba", so at best it's a wash.
@FraSlo-My apologies for missing your earliest reference to ESE. I could blame early morning bleariness or lack of coffee, but that would just be excusing my own incompetence. I'm glad at least someone else noticed, even if I didn't notice that someone else had noticed.
@JC66:
not supposed, it's true. although the extreme examples tend toward the wealthier suburbs rather than Boston/Cambridge. those of us from west of 495 tend to talk Bland American.
I'm too ill-read to evaluate your particular citations. But all humankind stands on the shoulders of the billions who preceded us. Funny how many young people take the "civilized" world entirely for granted, while thinking they're the first people to ever have an intelligent thought.
How many of the anti-vaxxers screaming about the "right to privacy from governmental intrusion into private decisions" do you suppose are rabid anti-abortionists?
Brian A in SLC.
Abortionists claim the right to privacy is what allows mothers to kill their children🙄
@Brian:
Wow!!! What an idea! If the Supremes knock out Roe on the grounds that there's no privacy guarantee in the Constitution, Sleepy Joe can order them to get the shot or go to re-education camps in Blue Cities. They'll be housed in the remaining 1930's tenements, just like their ancestors. The main curriculum will be 1619 Project and Critical Race Theory. In order to complete their 'visit' they have to adopt one mixed-race infant for each two snot nosed brats they already have. And they can only go to Methodist or Unitarian church. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!!!
Easy and fast. This is one of those puzzles that the constructor sweated over (coming up with all those ridiculous anagrams) without creating a great solving experience.
On my phone I don't see the puzz title. But somehow when I had PIRAT it was obvious what that answer would be, then realized movie titles, and the clue for 34A made zero sense but having ITSA kinda did it.
Liked the misdirect on giant calves, but had I so pretty clear not an animal. GRAPE nuts solved that.
Not happy to see LENIN and NYET today, but probably the puzz was in the pipeline, so, random.
Acrostic time...
Late, but wanted to say that while I'm pro-chice, I can totally see the argument against abortion, and those who can't are either blinkered by orthodoxy or are bad faith. Anyway, the point is that I'm so f*cking over this culture war bs, and don't like people turning up the temperature by being provocative. I think it militates against the cause anyway.
Should we also have a crossword fundraiser for the death penalty? At least those people have shown that they deserve to be aborted.
And DA/NYET on the week that Russia invades Ukraine?? Too Soon!!
@9:56 -
see 12:54
Best sunday puzzle since 1945.. how could anyone whine, carp, or demean this puzzle... Only dweebs and twerps
When I saw the note I thought, "Uh oh. I won't know the movies." But I did - YAHOO! Of course there were other names I didn't know. Wish there was a day of the week when PPP didn't raise its ugly head.
Hey did you know about a show called HAYRIDE? Learned that!
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
I think it's a prodigious feat to create an anagram for each of these movies that even faintly describes it. Kudos to Mr. Polonsky for finding them, and pay no attention to the fussbudget behind the curtain.
My education continues. $1.3 MILLION for ONE CIGAR??? Well, if you put diamonds on the band, that's kinda cheating, no? I mean, that has nothing to do with the actual product; it's just packaging. No doubt one would light it--assuming they'd ever--with a Benjamin. I personally would consider it an investment, not (horrors!) a smoke.
Far be it from me to POOHPOOH this fine, entertaining--and, BTW, well-filled puzzle. I'll have what he's having. Eagle.
HAYRIDE IDOS
She was ONELMSTREET, AFRAID and off-guard,
WHENHARRYMETSALLY TO UNITE as his wife.
THEDEVIL had ONEUP that seemed TOOHARD,
but she SAYS,"IT'S no NIGHTMARE, IT'SAWONDERFULLIFE!"
--- ALBUS KENDALL OLSEN
Really wanted 88 Down ("Rhea with four Emmys") to be SEEHORN although to my knowledge she hasn't won any. Hopefully this is due to change this year for her outstanding performance in "Better Call Saul".
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