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Relative difficulty: MEDIUM
THEME: MARGINALIA (letters are missing at the edges of the puzzle)
Word of the Day: DRY MARTINI (62A What "should be made by filling a glass with gin, then waving it in the general direction of Italy," per Noël Coward) —
The martini is a cocktail made with gin and vermouth, and garnished with an olive or a lemon twist. Over the years, the martini has become one of the best-known mixed alcoholic beverages. H. L. Mencken called the martini "the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet," and E. B. White called it "the elixir of quietude". (wikipedia)
• • •
Greetings, CrossWorld - my name is Whit and I have the honor of stepping in to blog for Rex today. It's my second time here. I suppose this came about because I was tweeting about the first time I guest-blogged, way back in 2019. When I published that blog, my wife's uncle called her up - I don't think they had ever discussed crosswords or crossword blogs before - to ask if that was her husband writing for Rex Parker. Then, a few days later, I ran into someone who works with my wife, and he also asked if that was me. He said, rather dryly, "Was that you writing on Rex Parker? I don't care for him." A loyal readership, anyway you can get it.
(This is my dog. She's a good dog.)
I'm glad to be back. Let's get to the puzzle.
Theme answers:
- ATED (1A Beat in chess - MATED)
- HIMO (10A Classic Jumbotron Shout-out - HIMOM)
- RTTEACHER (20A Educator in a Smock - ARTTEACHER)
- MEDUS (22A Figure seen on Athena's shield - MEDUSA)
- ACEHORSE (32A Thoroughbred, eg. - RACEHORSE)
- PGATOU (36A FedEx Cup Organizer - PGATOUR)
- OBLETS (46A Some drinking vessels - GOBLETS)
- NOPARKIN (48A Kind of zone in a city - NOPARKING)
- CEMAN (59A Profession in an O'Neill Title - ICEMAN)
- DRYMARTIN (62A What "should be made by filling a glass with gin, then waving it in the general direction of Italy," per Noël Coward - DRYMARTINI
- ERDY (70A Geekish - NERDY)
- EPSO (72A Big name in printers - EPSON)
(The man had style!)
Apart from the theme answers, though, answers were very short and kind of clunky. I liked IMAMS (40A Muslim leaders) - Ramadan starts tomorrow, Eid Mubarak - and ISLAS (18A Sorna y Nublar, en "Jurassic Park") because dinosaurs chomping on people is fun to think about, but other than that, the fill didn't have much kick. RATON (43A Get into trouble, in a way) is clunky. TOYOU (53A Two-word tribute) is clunky. CANI (69A "Pretty please?" is clunky. And the way the grid was laid out meant that everything felt tight.
Man, I think I'm kinda down on this puzzle.
But I'm not down on the blog! This was fun to write and it was fun to think about the puzzle this way. I hope Rex will have me back again.
Bullets:
- 65A: Kid-lit character with a green suit and gold crown (BABAR) — Babar rules. Always happy to see Babar floating around the world. He lives in Celesteville, and his wife is named Celeste, so I like to imagine that there is a complicated matriarchal power structure in Elephantland and Babar is a puppet king.
- 68A: Chess:check::go:____ (ATARI) — I did not know that was where the word Atari comes from. Apparently Go is one of the hardest games in the world to master. I know that I paid 99 cents for a phone app and then immediately gave up trying to learn.
- 21D: Reader's jottings, e.g. (ANNOTATION) — I realize I haven't really talked about any of the downs, and I think that's because I mostly solved this on the across clues. There's some meat to the down answers and the puzzle can stretch its legs there. I might have been more pleased if I'd taken the all-downs approach.
- 44D: Scan options for the claustrophobic (OPENMRIS) — Who isn't claustrophobic in an MRI machine?
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
[Do what no one else does and follow Whit on Twitter]
I've come to tolerate, if not accept, the occasional rebus but I WILL NOT suffer a letters outside the grid(or letters in the black squares) puzzle. I flushed this one as soon as I saw what was up.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing the purists aren't going to like a grid that spills over the edges, but I had fun with it - "hickspeak" (NOPARKIN) and all.
ReplyDeleteAnd discovering (all on my own!) that the "missing" letters themselves spelled MARGIN from top to bottom.
Good, old-fashioned Thursdayery. (© @LMS)
Well, FWIW, I'm impressed.
🧠🧠
🎉🎉🎉
ReplyDeleteGot the theme at [A]RT TEACHER, which helped me correct mate for ATED at 1A. Didn't realize until the end that the "missing" letter spelled MARGIN twice. Knew Tycho Brahe but not about the sword duel. Didn't know about ATARI but it was fun to learn. Two kealoas in the south: AVOW (which could've been AVer) and CANI (mayI). Is "B PICTURE" a thing? Don't people usually say "B MOVIE"?
I loved this from start to finish, and throughout, the word that kept ringing through my mind was “quality”.
ReplyDeleteIt was a Puzzle, first and foremost. It raised the rebus red flag early on, but rebi didn’t work. Cluing was vague and tricky and there were answers I didn’t know. When I figured out that it was a letters-outside-the-edge theme, there was the matter of what those letters spelled.
It brought rewards. When I did figure out what those letters spelled, and saw it was the same word on both sides, and saw that the letters were symmetrical, I could figure out what and where my missing marginalia letters were, and it actually helped me solve some words that were evading me. On top of that, there were such lovely answers: BRAHE, HOAR, GOBLETS, T.S. ELIOT in full, PELE, Eugene O’Neil title, BABAR, AFOOT, ANNOTATION, Noël Coward quote, ARLEN, MARGINALIA. Throughout the solve, the aesthete in me kept going “ahhh”.
While the grid mightily battled me, it wasn’t sadistic, that is, it didn’t shut the portcullis and taunt me. It left just enough opening to reward my efforts, reminding me of Leonard Cohen’s beautiful lyric, “There is a crack, a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in”.
I loved the twist, Oliver, and its skillful execution, and you brought a pool of beauty into my day. Thank you so much for making this!
@Lewis - Agreed on all counts. Could'na said it better myself...so I won't.
DeleteI love a twist in my dry martini
DeleteI'm an old-fashioned guy who believes crosswords are meant to be solved on paper (in pencil for beginners and ink for the more experienced solvers). And that certainly worked to my advantage today! Being able to write in and see the letters in the margin allowed me to fly through this puzzle.
ReplyDeleteot bad. Would have been more fun to solve on paper, where I would have written those missing letters outside the grid.
ReplyDeleteA couple of possible Naticks that I can see, but the overall quality is enough to make allowances.
ReplyDeleteA puzzle that references Tycho BRAHE, Jurassic Park, and the Ishtar Gate is a winner with me, although I wanted ‘dragons’ for the last of those. And I think the clue for ISLAS should have used ‘Parque Jurasico’ in the clue.
The margin letters were annoying but CANI instead of MAYI was frustrating. I mean let’s at least be grammatically correct.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous - If a 4 year old is begging its mom for a ride on the carousel in Central Park, they importune, "Mommy, mommy, can I, can I, can I?" and not "May I, may I, may I." So. That.
DeleteUnless they're taught from age 3 that "May I?" is not only correct but polite and proper, and "Can I?" is none of the above. Which means, I suspect, that they are now somewhere over 50.
DeleteChildren who use “May I” in movies usually turn out to be murderers.
DeleteWanted to do it on paper but the app doesn’t let you print it. So, you couldn’t put the outside the box answers in and had to keep going back until you realized that they spelled margin. Also, took a while to see that it was the same letters opposite each other going down the sides. If you could write them in it would have been clear sooner. Shouldn’t use puzzles that don’t work in the app or fix the app.
ReplyDeleteCompletely agree. Solved the whole thing in the app, got the theme, but the answers were not rebuses, and there were no margins into which to register the marginalia. After finally resorting to Reveal Puzzle, I actually cursed out loud at the result. Boo!
DeleteAnother ten minutes of my life wasted on a near-rebus. WTF NYTIMES.
ReplyDeleteHad some fun with this. I only count two themers - in that sense it’s a little thin. Once the trick fell - it was smooth sailing. I’ll join @Frantic in seeing more of Rex’s hickspeak with NO PARKIN. Love the Coward quote and Marisa TOMEI.
ReplyDeleteDidn’t like the plurals OPEN MRIS, EASTS and COBBS. Know nothing about BABAR or go.
SUSAN I’ve been thinking about you tonight
Enjoyable Thursday solve.
Obviously a grid full of gibberish is not my cup of tea, no matter what type of gimmick was used to get there. You can tell it is a very weird day when one of the “more normal” answers is something referred to as an ISLAS. I’m guessing the hard-core solvers and those who enjoy Saturdays will find this one challenging and enjoyable - just too cute by a half for my taste.
ReplyDeleteThx Oliver; that was a salad with lots of crunch to it! :)
ReplyDeleteMed++
Not only tricky, but lots of unknowns for me. These are the kind of challenges I just like to take my time with, employing @Lewis's 'faith solve'.
More or less caught the theme at MATED, and it was, indeed, a help to the finish line. Like how the marginal letters spelled out MARGIN.
Thank goodness for fair crosses or I'd've been lost at sea on some of these, e.g., DR. TEETH, BRAHE, ISLAS, MEDUSA, FOG, TS ELIOT, DRY MARTINI, BABAR, ATARI, COBB, to name a few. (whew!)
An excellent adventure! :)
@burtonkd (2:03 PM yd)
I'm hooked; I subscribed and look forward to learning a bunch! :)
@okanaganer (3:33 PM yd) 👍 QB dbyd)
Yeah, times certainly depend on wheelhouse letter combos, as well as number of words to be found. Usually stay within my 30 min. time limit. :)
@Whatsername 👍 for your Wordle eagle yd :)
___
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Brahe crossing Arlen? Seriously!?#
ReplyDelete@Mac - As I always say, cultural capital.
DeleteEasy puzzle, once the trick is discovered. But the clue for 1-ACROSS is terrible, grammatically. "BEATEN IN CHESS" fits "MATED." "BEAT IN CHESS" would apply to "MATE," but not "MATED."
ReplyDelete@Bob Millx the clue for 1A is not terrible, it's simply that "beat" is an ambiguous verb form, as it may be either present or past tense. cf. @ncmathsadist
DeleteFor me, anything goes on a Thursday -- part of the fun is figuring out what new trick they could come up with (though I'd bet something akin to this has been done before.) I sussed what was going on at the second theme clue: HIMO(M) and everything fell from there. When I finished, I did say: these letters on the margin had better form some kind of word or phrase, and, sure enough, they did, so I was pleased.
ReplyDeleteWhat is it with the taste for ultra-dry gin-only martinis in the early-mid-20th century (and somewhat beyond)? Churchill is also known to have said something akin to liking his martinis with gin and then observing the vermouth from across the room. (Another quote attributed to him, but I'm guessing apocryphal, follows the Noel Coward quote, with "bowing in the direction of France" instead of Italy.) Another quote I can't definitively attribute recommended pouring gin in a cocktail glass in the shadow of a vermouth bottle. Just call it a freaking glass of gin at that point! How is that a martini or a cocktail of any sort? And don't tell me it's the addition of an olive. Thankfully, it seems martinis have swung away from that extreme.
Loved it. But yeah, just a wisp of compassion wrapped in schadenfreude for digital solvers. Gof intended us to solve on paper. In pen.
ReplyDeleteBTW - NOTE that the MARGINalized letters are always after a gap of two lines: M - - A - - R - - G - - I - - N.
BBTW - This makes it a 15x16 grid
Nice touches in the fill. ANNOTATION and MARGINALIA are nice bonus themers, but you gotta love DR TEETH. Going through all the longer fill and themers the only green paintish answer is REPRICE. And if you’re going to have a DRY MARTINI it seems GOBLETS should be your drinking vessel of choice. The T NUT and P TRAP did get the mildest of side eye, but otherwise a fine solve.
I’ve mentioned before that Chen and I do not share much in the way of what’s interesting. That this wasn’t his POW of the week is evidence of that. I’m correcting this by awarding Roeder a ZOW.
@Joaquin - No No No. It’s not about experience, it’s about erasing wrecking newsprint and (especially now) pen being easier for old eyes.
I think what this comments section needs is a good may I CAN I mandate debate.
If you have been at crosswords for only a short while you might be interested to google today’s constructor and “plagiarism.” He’s done work in this area.
Two clues allude to the game of Hess. Bad form.
ReplyDeleteI print and solve on paper. I can imagine the difficulty that online solvers face with this type of puzzle.
@ncmathsadist I think you mean tense ambiguity, but yeah. But on the other hand, tense ambiguity is common in puzzles, and in this case, making the switch from MATE to ATED was part of the fun, for me at least.
ReplyDeleteLeast enjoyable Thursday puzzle ever. The gimmick wasn't hard to figure out, but the arbitrariness of when it was applied was irritating in the extreme.
ReplyDeleteI have every book and play and essay and memoir Noel Coward ever wrote, even the extra-obscure ones. In have every biography and tribute book about him ever written. I have dozens of LPs (even the limited edition impossible-to-find ones), plus many, many CDs and digital recordings. If I'm missing any, I don't know it. I have two of his autographs (a treasure!). I like to think that I know more about Coward than anyone in the universe.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, I didn't know (or didn't recall) that quote. How can that be??
Puzzle was fine, marginalia theme was a nice change from a Thursday rebus, but that South section, capped off by ATARI and OPENMRIS, felt like it took me almost as long as the rest of the puzzle.
@Bob 7:55 AM Someone who got beat in chess may well have been MATED (or resigned) close enough for my little slice of CrossWorld.
ReplyDelete@Peter P 8:02 AM My preferred technique is to dip the olive in the vermouth and run it around the rim of the glass, which I adopted from a Cary Grant scene in a movie so old it would be right at home in a NYT grid.
I’m very claustrophobic and during the few MRIs I’ve had I moved around so much to render them useless. That is until my last one. I told the dr. this and he wrote me a prescription for a Valium and it worked wonders.
ReplyDeleteA great little puzzle! I enjoyed it a lot.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteWell, learned something today, thanks @Southside. I'd always heard that after the gin is in the glass, you wave the vermouth cork over it. Speaking of Cary Grant, our guest blogger's name sounds as if he might be a character in the movie you referenced.
ReplyDeleteNicely done Mr. Vann. You expressed my feelings in an upbeat fashion, and with class.
Not to belabor the point, but if one says "I was beat," a grammarian would correct "beat" to "beaten." "I got beat" is acceptable as street language, I suppose, but why should we accept it in a word puzzle?
ReplyDelete@ Robert Lockwood Mills (srsly)
DeleteBut you could say "She beat him at chess."
Since I solve on paper and have seen the "letter outside the grid" gimmick before, this one went pretty fast. Knowing DRTEETH and TSELIOT and BABAR and some other stuff didn't hurt. Also the megaclue of MARGINALIA. Slight snag at BRAHE, who for some reason I thought was BRACHE, pronounced BRAHE, but that was pretty easily fixed.
ReplyDeleteThe Noel Coward quote was obvious, but MARTINIs, DRY or otherwise, are not my thing. To paraphrase the Pythons, this is something not for drinking, this is something for mixing and avoiding.
Waiting for @egs to come up with NO PAR KING for top dog in the terrible golf department.
Nice enough Thursdecito. OR. I noticed your little bit of self-reference with OPENMRIS, and that's OK. Thanks for the fun.
PS-Thanks to those of you offering good wishes on my, um, procedure yesterday. Happy to say it's all behind me now.
Marginally good ThursPuz.
ReplyDeleteA pretty easy solvequest, except for:
1. Them margin-nailed-yah letters … especially at first.
2. DRTEETH. Luv the name, tho.
3. AHORA. Vaguely sorta recalled that word -- probably from another puz -- tho. Crossin HOAR. har
4. 15x16-sized puzgrid. Actually, sorta 15.5x16, I reckon. Lost a few tack-on precious nanoseconds, due to extra letters.
Clues mostly seemed easy-ish, for a ThursPuz. Only two ?-marker clues, so they weren't tryin too awful hard to be feisty. Maybe they figured the margin-nailed-yah letters would put up the necessary extra fight.
As always, solved on the paper, so no prob rememberin where the MARGINs were.
staff weeject pick (from a paltry 6 candidates): ESS. Very runtpuz-like clue for ESS, btw. Admirable.
fave themers: NOPARKIN. DRYMARTIN. ACEHORSE.
fave other sparkly moments: HOMETEAM. MELTAWAY. DRTEETH. BPICTURE & PTRAP & TNUT.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Roeder dude.
Masked & Anonymo5Us
p.s. yep. I know. I'm here early. PuzEatinSpouse got up real early and left at 7am to go on a 1.2-hour road trip. M&A made her a quick send-off breakfast. Just got the call that she made it there fine. Like. Test solvers haven't done the runtpuz yet, but I'll splatz it down there anyhoo, to celebrate my luv's safe arrival.
**gruntz**
We get a lot of chess and now GO over the last 2 days. While people assume chess is the most challenging game, GO seems to take the prize. While computers have dominated chess since the days of IBM's Big Blue, I believe programmers were only recently able to create a GO master. It is fun to learn that ATARI came from GO.
ReplyDeleteBABAR: This irritated me to no end trying to read this to my kids. Basically an advertisement for how wonderful life is if you are adopted by a rich lady, or live as beloved royalty.
CANI/mAyI: Teachers that still insist that a student says MAYI go to the bathroom with a sarcastic "I know that you are able" need to move on already. While the grammatical distinction exists, "may I" just serves as a precious formalism. Also, why call any more attention than necessary to the potentially awkward call of nature.
As a piano bandleader, I invoke DRTEETH as my patron saint. He rocks out and creates a great vibe for other musicians to want to play - still can't keep the drummer in control.
I wasn't expecting a guest blogger today, but nice job Whit. With a second day of hickspeak, I'm guessing Rex couldn't even...
Just awful. How many art teachers wear smocks? I’m guessing close to zero. If you’re putting French and Spanish words in your puzzle that have not made their way into English usage, you are not trying hard enough. EGALE, AHORA? Give me a break. Has anyone ever referred to putting an item on sale as REPRICing it? Doubtful. Making stuff up and deciding that you can draw words from three languages results in a highly annoying puzzle. The missing letters did not impress me one way or the other, and I don’t care that they spell out anything. There are some nice clues and answers, but I very much disliked this overall.
ReplyDeleteHey All !
ReplyDeleteConstruction is top-notch, and very difficult. The two Long Down Themers cross 4(!) of the truncated Across Themers. Wow! Oliver had to not only find the Down Themers, but then get them to work with and cross words that had to start with specific letters in specific order. On both sides! Then had to get fill that wouldn't be just jibberish. And since there's hardly any complaints about the fill, he pulled it off. And each Themer is across from each other, each one every second row. (With the exception of Top and Bottom rows.)
It's way difficult that I just described. 😁 @LMS could explain it better.
Took me a bit to figure out what was happening. Figured it out roughly at HIMOM. Then started seeing letters being left off, since the Downs were clued and answered regularly. Knew the letters probably spelled something, but too lazy to find out myself. That's why I come here!
MARTINIs crack me up. Just order a glass of gin. Same thing. Unless you physically add a drop it two of vermouth, it's gin with an olive. Or change the olive to a pearl onion, and you get a Gibson. Gin with an onion. Or drink something else. 😁
Nice puz, extra column whilst keeping only 36 Blockers. Great fill considering the constraints. All that said while I still had a DNF. Had lOFAT, and since not knowing ARLEN or BRAHE (unsophisticated, or uneducated?), so had BRuHE/uRLEl (implimenting @M&A's "when in doubt, go with a U" strategy).
Puz deserves to be TOUTS. Har.
yd -4, should'ves 2
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
@Me
DeleteHar. "each one every second row."
Not.
Thanks @Zed for letting me know it starts at top row, then every third row.
Silly brain.
RooMonster Vermouth Anyone? Guy
The clue for 66 across is not accurate. An 'iron' is not a 'midrange' club per se. It can be a LONG iron ( a three for example). It can be a SHORT iron (an eight or nine). Or it can be midrange (five or six). As clued, the answer begs to be a specific number.
ReplyDeleteThanks Ollie for the puzzle! I liked that 1A was a chess-related clue - I first started playing chess because of the constructor's recaps of the 2018 World Chess Championships for 538.
ReplyDeleteIt took me a while to realize the missing letters were the same within each row, that those missing letters spelled out MARGIN, and that those rows with missing letters were evenly spaced out. Nice!
Also, re: "Beat in chess" - the past tense of beat is beat. The past participle is beaten, but you can say:
"Magnus beat Ian in chess" -> "Magnus mated Ian"
I had a mistake in my 'completed' grid. I could not figure out how AdOOT meant underway, but there I had it. I also thought there were usually plural dOGs of war. But it clearly wasn't man of war. I was confused. You might say I was in a FOG.
ReplyDeleteSlammin Sammy,
ReplyDeleteYes.
P.S. The Homestead misses you. Actually, we all miss The Homestead.
WTF is an Omni Homestead resort anyway? I mean who mandated that nonsense?
I enjoyed it. Figured out the fukkery on the right, then when applied to the left, it all came together. Nice.
ReplyDeleteI love foreign language clues. I speak Italian and Spanish and I've studied German, French and Russian. Crossword people like to talk about their strong suit and that is mine.
ReplyDeleteI watched one season of Game of Thrones, which is enough for crosswords! I loathe Star Wars and I hate those clues.
I remember seeing the original Star Wars at the movies with friends. I hated it! I didn't understand all the hype.
When I lived in Albany, New York, there was a store nearby called Khan's Market. We called it The Wrath of Khan's Market.
Thursday crosswords are almost always my least favorite of the week, but this puzzle was unusually contemptible. The theme was utterly pointless and inserted with the sole logic being "it's Thursday, we have to have a theme." I hated it. Here's to hoping that the themeless Friday and Saturday will be more satisfying and less of a slog.
ReplyDelete@Slammin Sammy - You have your woods/drivers for long range, your putter for short range, and the irons for mid range. That you have refinement among your irons for various ranges doesn't obviate that IRONS, as a group, are what you use for mid range shots.
ReplyDelete@egsforbreakfast yesterday - I have it on good authority that nine of ten anonymous trolls did, in fact, poop their pants yesterday evening between 10:00 and 10:05PM.
@Mike in Bed-Stuy - If that kid had been raised by my parents, he would have been smacked.
I loved this puzzle and it makes me want to shout AUTHOR, AUTHOR! I liked it more than this week's very clever Monday POW because it required so much more ingenuity from me. This was obviously going to be a rebus -- but not everywhere, and it also seemed that it would have to be a two-letter rebus. Highly unusual and very perplexing.
ReplyDeleteHere, at 1A, is the best use of the fiendish "hidden past tense" I've yet seen because the present tense MATE was the right number of letters. But while I don't speak Spanish, I somehow know AHORA and I certainly know that the Bridge clue had to be either EASTS or WESTS. (I wrote in ??STS, btw.) So MATE simply wouldn't work.
14A had to be either HOAR or RIME and HOAR worked with AHORA. I was on my way -- sort of.
Even after I got my MARGIN in the left margin, I'm still wondering MARGIN-what in the right-hand margin? MARGIN DOODLING? MARGIN DRAWING? Neither fit. I'd forgotten what a Jumbotron was; I didn't know MEDUSA (that's who Athena put on her shield?) and all I had in the right margin was the "R". But eventually I sorted it all out.
I love the DRY MARTINI quote. Although the way I heard it is that you wave the unopened bottle of vermouth over the glass. Nothing about Italy -- but then I wasn't lucky enough to have met Noel Coward.
The Thursday challenge I always hope for. Terrific puzzle.
Welcome back, Whit; thx for your write-up! :)
ReplyDeleteThey beat me in chess; I got beaten, I suffered the ultimate beatdown, i.e., they MATED me in two. ♛ (yes, it is possible) 😔
Fave golf club: sawed-off 7 IRON for chip and run shots. ⛳️
@pabloinnh 😂
___
td pg: 8:18 (knocked off yd's final 6er first thing this AM) / W: 3*
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
I came, I saw, and I eventually conquered the puzzle because of the DOWNS. I figured something was up when I had HIMO. Even though I worked the puzzle on the app, I grabbed some paper and jotted down the MARGIN because I figured there just had to be some significance! So far, no one has mentioned the missing letters creating MARGIN while also having MARGINALIA as an answer. This kind of dupe doesn’t bother me…just askin.’
ReplyDeleteGood to see our old friend PELE make an appearance. I just checked and he’s 81 now!
@G. WEISSMAN, yeah, I’m taking an art class now and my teacher doesn’t wear a smock. But, ARTTEACHER came to mind immediately…go figure. There may be a day where no chefs actually wear toques also.
Whit, your dog definitely looks like a good girl! Thanks for the review!
@anonymous (7:20) - The "can" vs "may" distinction in these phrases has pretty much died out. In an American Heritage Dictionary usage panel survey in 2009, only "37 percent of the Usage Panel rejected can instead of may in the sentence Can I take another week to submit the application?" And only a bit of over half those said it was "somewhat" unacceptable rather than "completely" unacceptable. Source: https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=can
ReplyDeleteUsage has moved on. I do not correct my kids for using "can" over "may," but I do let them know some people may prefer "may" because that's what they were taught when they grew up. Language is fluid -- one of the things I love about it.
@mmorgan (8:40) - I'm somehow not surprised. It has the feel of a quote that has been attributed to many people; as I said in my post, I've seen almost the exact quote attributed to Churchill with "France" substituted for "Italy." Maybe Einstein said it. I mean, we misattribute quotes to him all the time, so why not this one? I'd like to see a definitive source. The quote is popularly attributed to Coward, but I haven't seen anyone cite where it was written or heard yet. Not saying it didn't happen, but I haven't found the source.
@Zed (8:06)- I do have to say I was somewhat disappointed that the app didn't do some graphical whiz-bang revealer with the letters outside the margin placed there. No idea why they didn't do it, as they do silly stuff like put in cartoon magnets in the puzzle (last week) and have lots of animated revealers.
@Southside Johnny (8:43) - The technique I was taught for those who like their martinis ultra dry was to pour some vermouth in a shaker full of ice, shake vigorously, and pour it out. What is left sticking to the shaker is the "proper" amount for a dry martini. I can accept that and I can accept dipping the olive: at least you're getting a vermouth accent in there, much like using bitters in a drink. What I don't get is just skipping over the vermouth completely. It strikes me as a more "sophisticated," socially acceptable way of saying "gimme a glass of gin" without sounding like a sot. A "classic" dry martini is usually somewhere around 5:1 gin:vermouth. The contrarian in me liked to order them wet. (Back when I used to drink.) It does help that I actually like both vermouth and gin. I mean, if you didn't like one of the defining ingredients, why would you order it?
@G. Weissman (9:40) - I don't think it's particularly uncommon in elementary school for an art teacher to be wearing a smock when doing a painting class. I know I've seen my kids teacher do so in kindergarten. I haven't seen any of her art classes in person since then, though. (But the kids definitely have to wear a smock.)
What a breath of fresh air to read your review, Whit. So enjoyable to savor your perspective with cleverly chosen words. I hope you fill-in for the curmudgeon more often.
ReplyDeleteI had a love-hate relationship with this one. Loved the theme but hated some of the more trivial PPP, a lot of which I had no hope of guessing. BRAHE, ENNIO, ISLAS, and the ATARI clue was a total mystery. MARGINALIA was new but easy enough to parse and once I saw the trick, I really got into it and had fun. Does that make me NERDY?
ReplyDeleteSeemed tough overall and took me longer than most Thursdays but bottom line, it was challenging and intriguing, and the theme helped considerably with the solve. So here’s TO YOU Oliver. Nice job.
My trick to surviving an MRI is to take a Benadryl about 30 minutes prior, then close my eyes before it starts and never OPEN them until its over. 😬
@Pete. I'm sorry you were raised by child abusers.
ReplyDeleteSo I naturally started with MATE at 1A, then saw AHORA, confirmed by OUST, and figured it was some kind of letter rotation, move the M to the end of the word and it becomes ATEM. I didn't know the muppet guy, so he coulda been mR. instead of DE. So when I saw the clue for 20A I already had the RT, and filled in RTTEACHERA. But then I got HIMO from crosses, so there had to be an M sticking out at the end, and perhaps looping back to the left. Aha!
ReplyDeleteAfter that my only big problem was ignoring the date in 41A and figuring it must be a novel by John OhArA.
This puzzle has a tinge of colonialism, what with those LIONS that were stolen by the Germans and BABAR -- the power behind the throne isn't the female elephants, it's the old lady and other white Europeans. I'm not objecting to them in a puzzle, though.
I didn't like ANNOTATION at first -- symmetrical to the revealer, with paired clues -- but finally decided it's a nice touch.
Whit Vann was rather mild in his criticism of the puzzle which seems to have stimulated a lot of us to make low-end Rex-like swipes at it. Not pretty.
ReplyDeleteI doubt that there will be many Wordle birdies today. I scrambled to bogey.
Jeff Chen lists 16 letters-outside-the-grid puzzles dating back to 1994. I've probably done them all but today seemed like the first. I liked it a lot. Only six threes, the fewest in some time.
The constructor, Oliver Roeder, just published a book called Seven Games. The seven are checkers, backgammon, chess, Go, poker, Scrabble, and bridge. Pretty good book. He gives the history of each and how far computer analysis has progressed in solving them. The game I know best is backgammon. Artificial intelligence has produced a program that can beat any human player. Mr. Roeder also tells about his experiences in playing the games. He held his own in big-league Scrabble tournaments.
Happy to learn that the symbol with three horizontal lines that I see a lot is called a hamburger button.
@Bob Millx (7:55) -- Yesterday, I beat you in chess. Yesterday I mated you in chess. It works.
ReplyDelete@Conrad (6:43) -- Yes, we say B MOVIE, not B PICTURE, but we're not in the movie biz. It's always fascinated me how film stars talk about "the picture I was in." "I'm proudest of that picture I did with Billy Wilder." That's what they said back in the 1940s and that's what they're still saying today. They almost never say "movie," they just don't. Go on YouTube and watch interviews with famous movie stars of every era. "Picture" seems to be a Thing -- though I've never really understood why.
Re: DRY MARTINI: You can fill your glass with straight gin till the cows come home, but your drink won't be nearly as potent if you don't add any vermouth. My father warned me early on about cocktails like Martinis and Manhattans which "mix the grain and the grape". It was that particular combo that made them especially lethal and if you were drinking them, that it was best to stick to just one drink. So leaving out the vermouth entirely doesn't make the drink stronger -- it does just the opposite.
Today's write-up proves that one can dislike a puzzle and express one's emotion in a nice way. I guess disliking a puzzle is different than hating it.
ReplyDeleteAnd I liked this puzzle. For those who dislike letters outside the grid, think of the grid the way Chen does: an oversize grid that just omits displaying the black squares. Won' make you like the puzzle any more but at least it might make more sense.
Before publication, the puzzles go through a process of test solving. I am guessing that if too many of the test solvers complain about things such as foreign words, PPP and the like, the puzzle would be sent back for revision. I would guess that the test solvers are a versatile lot, as a varied assortment of puzzles get published, some guaranteed to arouse the ire of some who comment here. I guess you just have to accept that the puzzles must rotate features so all solvers enjoy at least some of the puzzles. Some less than Lewis, some more than Sharp.
Medium-tough. I held on to B feaTURE before PICTURE for too long, and it took a while to sort out MATED. Clever, pretty smooth, and a bit irritating. Kinda liked it.
ReplyDeleteI went from hating to loving this puzzle. Hated it at first because of all the names and trivia. Then loved it when I discovered the theme and how elegantly it is constructed. Here’s TO YOU, Oliver, for creating a Thursday gem. Who says that words can’t occasionally pop out of the grid?
ReplyDeleteAbout Noel Coward and martinis. I had the opportunity to visit a house in Wisconsin that was once the summer home of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, famous actors of yore who were good friends of Mr. Coward. They invited him there to write and because of his love of martinis, would lock him in his room each day away from the gin until he had produced a certain number of pages. (This was a ritual that they mutually agreed to.) I found myself standing in the room where this writing took place and was awestruck to learn that this was the room where he wrote the play “Private Lives.”
Oof. Some people here don't know what a 1 or 2 iron is for....Midrange my foot.
ReplyDeleteI'd have preferred this if the letters outside the grid spelled D-O-O-D-L-E. Who writes "MARGIN" in the margin? And you already have MARGINALIA inside the grid...
ReplyDeleteStormy Weather Doo Wop #1 –the most depressing of the three. Love the label name.
Stormy Weather Doo Wop #2 –interesting take. Basic I→bVII chord changes. The artist is *not* the same group as on #1.
Stormy Weather Doo Wop #3 –the most popular, and most bizarrely cheerful, of the three.
...and of course a pitching wedge is an iron used for very close shots. Nothing like the midrange 5, 6 and 7's.
ReplyDeleteI think the whole thing around the extra-extra-extra dry martini is really pretty simple: gin can be 40 or even 50 percent alcohol; vermouth is about 18% alcohol. By asking for a drink that is essentially all gin, you got more bang for your buck. I really think that was the whole point behind it. The old time "Mad Men" martini drinkers weren't messing around: they just wanted to get hammered - as quickly and as thoroughly as possible!
ReplyDeleteAs for vodka martinis, I defer to Toots Shor: he walked into his bar one day and the bartender said, "Hey, boss - last night somebody beat your martini drinking record," (of something like 12 martinis in an evening.) "Yeah, this guy drank 14 vodka martinis!" Toots scornfully sneered, "Vodka martinis? They don't count!"
A puzzle as terrific today as yesterday’s was a dud. Maybe because Tycho Brahe and Harold Arlen are old friends of mine, or maybe because i annotate almost every book I read (non fiction) and my own use of marginalia is often out of control. In an aside: the Times has seen fit to abolish the print the puzzle function from its iPhone app. Screw the readers once again!
ReplyDeleteThis was one of those "Do I order steak or lobster?" The MENU was enticing. If I order the steak, I'm always afraid there will be parts I won't be able to chew and I'll need some help from DR TEETH. If I order the lobster, I always seem to mutter"What's dat floating in this yummy sauce?".....
ReplyDeleteSome people don't like foreign words in their puzzles....I love them. AHORA, ISLAS and EGALE can dance with me any time. I will buy GOBLETS infused with a bodacious DRY MARTINI as long as the ICEMAN agrees to hold his vermouth. HI MOM. You'll always be proud of me.
the sleepy FOG lifted. I smelled dessert. It had a beautiful MOLD twirling through it and I ended up tipping the waitstaff with enough greens to drape my COBBS salad.
I feel fat, furry and happy. ODES TO YOU, Oliver. A most enjoyable evening.
As an iPhone solver, the mechanics of this terrific puzzle frustrated me. I spent too much time this morning trying to make a rebus work in the squares that spelled MARGIN. I was force to leave the puzzle feeling unfinished to get the happy song. Fair is fair and often the digital solvers have a better experience. It is what it is.
ReplyDeleteDRTEETH was a surprise. I thought I knew all the Muppets but it made me consider that my viewership was 35 years ago with my young children and the band was all about Animal at our house. I liked the BRAHE/ARLEN cross, PPP with some class. ANNOTATION and MARGINALIA were excellent although I tried MARGINNOTE first. This is my idea of what a Thursday puzzle should be and I always look forward to the different type of challenge this day brings.
These kind of puzzles are fine if you're solving on paper, but having letters in the margin doesn't translate to the computer app. I didn't bother writing the marginalized letters, so I didn't see what they spelled.
ReplyDeleteYay! I liked this puzzle a lot. But once again I forgot to jot down the missing letters to see if they were up to something - darn! On paper I might have seen it. Still, I had the pleasure of noticing that the missing letters matched on either margin.
ReplyDeleteThe only place I made a (lucky) guess was the BRAHE/ARLEN cross. Everything else I didn’t know was solved with crosses.
@Whatsername Hi! Thanks for noticing the fabulous Rikki. She’s been with us for 12 years and is still mistaken for a puppy sometimes. She's also the fastest retriever at the dog park. So fortunate she picked me. But she’s hypnotizing me now to get out of this chair and start the day…
I’m not a DRYMARTIN[I] drinker, but this puzzle certainly forced me to put the gin in MARGINALIA. @Peter P 10:28. Your technique for a DRYMARTIN[I] could be facilitated by knowing just when the [I]CEMAN cometh.
ReplyDeleteI like that 43A Get into trouble, in a way (RATON) also means mouse in Spanish (El RATON Mickey) and is informally used in some locales to mean “hangover”. Now that is a clear indicator that you got into trouble, though you may not remember just what the trouble was.
My commenting style is perhaps getting to be old hat when @pabloinnh 9:18 accurately assesses my likely entries. Maybe I’ll take to imitating the @Anonymous who misspells virtually every word and makes no sense whatsoever.
Anyway, variety is the spice of life, and, while this was not my fave puzz ever, I certainly enjoyed pushing the boundaries a bit. Thanks, Oliver Roeder.
bocamp (7:48) Thanks! No such luck today. Used a puzzle word but not the right one.
ReplyDelete@Zed (8:06) I agree this was a strong contender for POW and I love love love the idea of a ZOW. Maybe that should become a new weekly tradition. What do you think readers? Please respond yea or nay in the comments below any time you feel like it. (I said “please” and this is in no way a mandate or authoritarian decree. Participation is purely voluntary.) Results will be posted in the MARGIN of the MENU at Z’s Placebo and Tentacle one day next week.
@Pete (10:20) 🤣🤣🤣
Whit: Nice blog write up today and thank you for sharing a picture of your beautiful fur baby.
@Nancy (10:57) - As a prodigious drinker for many years, I assure you that anecdote about martinis is not correct. All that matters is the ethanol content. Folk wisdom like "beer before liquor, never sicker" and "liquor before beer, you're in the clear" doesn't make a lick of difference, other than having beers beforehand loosens you up and makes your judgment poor as you move on to liquor, which can be more quickly consumed before realizing how far into the bag you are. I mixed all the time with no apparent difference from sticking to a single drink all night. While I understand that is an anecdote in and of itself, I would have to see a study that shows otherwise and reasons for why something outside ethanol is causing an enhanced reaction. A martini that is all gin will make me drunk/buzzed quicker than a wet martini that is 2 or 3 parts gin to one part vermouth. You BAC will be higher withe the former. It's all in the alcohol content. (Some drinks may give you worse hangovers because of sugar content or tannins or things like that.)
ReplyDeleteRe: ARLEN and Joe D's links: I knew ARLEN wrote "Stormy Weather" -- but if I'd had any doubt at all, all I would have needed to do is sing a few bars. No one else could have written it. I've always called his work "Music to slit your wrists by." He depresses me unutterably -- every single song, even the ones that are supposedly not especially downbeat. And since I don't know very much about music composition, I can't pinpoint the reason.
ReplyDeleteI was once sitting at a large table with composers and lyricists from my year at the BMI Musical Theater Workshop. Sam H, a lyricist, turned to me and asked: "If you could collaborate with any composer, living or dead, who would it be?"
"That's easy," I said. "Richard Rodgers. Unquestionably. You, Sam?"
"Harold Arlen," he replied.
It was absolutely the last answer I would have expected from him or anyone else. All I could say was: "That's very interesting, Sam." But ARLEN would have been dead last on my list.
Whit, your review would have been much more satisfying and elucidating if you had displayed the completed puzzle with the marginal letters, as they did on Crossword Fiend.
ReplyDeleteIn a crossword puzzle, there is rarely a one-to-one correspondence between clue and answer. For a clue be correct, some interpretation/part/definition of the clue must equal some interpretation/part/definition of the answer.
ReplyDeleteNO PARKING is clued as “Kind of zone in a city”, but no one has complained that not all ‘no parking’ zones are in cities.
MENU is clued as “What a hamburger icon opens”, but no one has complained that not all menus are opened by a hamburger icon.
STOP is clued as “Dot on a subway map”, but no one has complained that not all stops are on subway maps.
IRON is clued as “Midrange club” … why are there issues being raised about this clue? And if you object to this clue, shouldn’t you object to those others?
A couple of comments lately about using a crossword answer as the seed word in Wordle...the minute NYT bought Wordle I knew this would happen...much like repeating a word from the mini. Do the editors think they’re being clever? Or just manipulative? Or incestuous? I’ve just started doing SB, so I wonder if there’s crossover there, too?
ReplyDeleteBtw, folks complaining about the “rebus” are missing the point...the missing letters aren’t crammed into a square, they’re hangin’ off the edge of the puzzle, i.e, “in the margin.” Maybe the app let you “rebus” it, but it still misses the point.
The app let's you rebus it, but you don't get the happy music if you do. I completely solved and understood the extra letters spelled margin, but had to check the puzzle to figure out that the app wasn't happy with two letters in a square. Send to me a tech failing.....
DeleteTwo Frickin grids with missin etters TO DATE this week! Makes an IPAD solve more challenging 😰
ReplyDeleteThanks to our guest comments guy….didn’t miss an ounce of the Rex vitriol.
Thanks again to @Nancy & @Lewis for saying what I agree with but struggle to articulate. Like yesterday’s grid the split between love or loathe seems wide. I’m just in awe of what Oliver did in this puzzle as others have noted above: the L/R symmetry & vertical intersections and then getting MARGIN in the MARGINALIA…just WOW!
As Henry James noted, “Moreover, it isn’t till I have accepted your data that I can begin to measure you. I have the standard, the pitch; I have no right to tamper with your flute and then criticize your music. “ As true of puzzle construction as it was of the art of fiction.
@whatsername. GAH
ReplyDeleteI liked the puzzle and can't understand why Whit doesn't, unless he usually solves online. Since I subscribe, and look forward to doing it in ink, on paper, the solve was pretty easy once you got the trick. It did take a while to see the M A R G I N was on both sides, and I thought it was quite a feat the M A R G I N s right opposite one another.
ReplyDeleteThe reason Coward waved his MARTINI in the general direction of Italy is that, while France makes an excellent vermouth or two (Dolin is first rate), Vermouth in his day mainly came from Italy. Indeed, a British name for a Martini was "Gin and It". Though San Franciscans know that the cocktail was originally called a Martinez cocktail, and was served under that name in the old time saloons. Even then they probably used Italian vermouth.
I actually believe a martini requires a fair amount of vermouth to make it worth drinking. White vermouth, of course, though gin with a little Campari is pretty tasty too.
p.p.s.s.
ReplyDeleteM&A just realized that tomorrow is April Fools Day. Unfortunately, this year it occurs on the day for a themeless FriPuz. But, I maintain f&aint hopes that the FriPuz might be a real raised-by-wolves themed puz, in honor of the occasion. That would be way cool.
M&A Hope Desk
@Whit Nice write-up, but we all know your dog is the best part. Who's a good girl?! ❤️
ReplyDeleteBeing a Gofless online solver myself, I had no trouble sussing how the theme worked, but also thought the Gof-fearing paper solvers had a slight advantage with this - especially with noticing the M-A-R-G-I-Nationalizing outside the grid.
I'm with @Peter P 1026am on missing some clever animation. Throw us heathens a bone, will ya!
@Whatsername 1137am Don't encourage him. 🤣 Also, does Chen have early access to every puzzle of any given week? How else could he choose POW? @Zed's ZOW would have to wait until the week was over and then the rest of us would have to remember the puzzle he cites. This makes my participation prohibitive, so I'm a "nah". 😉
Could someone clarify 59D for me? (CASE) Tx!
ReplyDeleteA CASE is something that is tried (in court). Took me a while to see that.
DeleteHi Camilof,
ReplyDeleteTried as in a court of law.
K
A new low for, let's say, the last six months. Why do we have to suffer this junk? More to the point, why do we have to pay $40 a year for this junk? This mess was wholly unsuitable for the crossword of a daily newspaper -- any daily newspaper.
ReplyDeleteWell. When I was a kid, La Madre would never let me get away with CAN I. Correct me to MAY I. Always.
ReplyDeleteAnd never knew ELIOT was awarded so late.
@egs-Hey, that was a one-off, and it just jumped out at me because it was a themer, Please continue your observances, as I look forward to them.
ReplyDeleteAnd pretty please do not emulate that particular anon. One of those is more than enough.
Also, the word I learned in Spain for hangover is "la resaca", which means "undertow". Always found that to be depressingly accurate.
@pablo I was doing a group bike ride, and we had a rest stop at a town called RESACA. We had us a good laugh because as you say it means Hangover in Spanish. There really is a Resaca, Georgia.
Delete- never mix, never worry
ReplyDelete- so, what's the deal with 2,3,4,5 woods? mid-range? or not?? some even (pros) will use one on the tee, if the winds are bad or the best landing zone is too close for the driver or too long for the 1 iron (not that anyone even carries that these days). if one classifies as Driver, Putter, anything in between is Mid-range, may be.
Medium? This was about the hardest Thursday ever for me, and it ended on a Natick DNF. I had DR TEEcH (no idea of that Muppet) and c-NUT (definitely a legit answer). I knew quickly that there was a missing letter from some answers, and rebus wasn’t looking good. But I needed MARGINALIA to get the theme, and that took a long time. And two regions in particular- the central west and the central south - just were not giving themselves up. It hurt to have tuG of war instead of foG of war and just refusing to give it up.
ReplyDeleteI will say that I felt a definite sense of accomplishment after I figured out the Natick and got happy music, but I wasn’t loving it during the solve.
Great to acknowledge the start of Ramadan, but I think you say Eid Mubarak when it ends, not when it begins. Eid is the festival that ends the month of sacrifice. But I’m not Muslim so I could be wrong.
This one took me a while to figure out, mainly because of 1A/4D. I knew that to beat someone in chess is to MATE them, but since 1D was AHORA, I figured right away that some mischief was AFOOT.
ReplyDeleteHowever, for 1D I confidently wrote in mRTEETH (so sorry, DRTEETH, for credentialing you incorrectly -- you worked hard for that DMA!), and so I had ATEm for 1A, and figured that the theme was about mixing around the letters somehow (rather than dropping one). I blame "beat" for being a daggone irregular verb. I eventually figured it out, but not before I'd clocked 21 minutes, well above my usual Thursday time.
@Peter P. (11:45) -- Well sure. If you have a glass containing 8 ounces of straight gin, it will obviously make you drunker than if you have a glass containing 4 1/2 ounces of straight gin mixed with a half an ounce of vermouth. (A nicely "dry" ratio, I'd argue, btw.)
ReplyDeleteThe comparison instead needs to be: Which will hit you harder? Five ounces of straight gin or 4-and-a-half ounces of straight gin mixed with one-half-an-ounce of vermouth.
The answer is definitely the latter. You can try it out for yourselves, everyone, but only if you have a "wooden leg". Otherwise I won't take responsibility.
@Nancy, you're such a great solver, but today I'd hoped to join you in throwing this puzzle at the wall, so I'm disappointed you saw it through!
ReplyDelete@bocamp, congratulations on great SB results again.
pg quickly, but now stuck on -4.
A legal CASE is tried in court
ReplyDelete@Anonymous (1:01 p.m.) Well, when I was a kid grown-ups taught me a lot of stuff that ranged from well-intentioned but outdated to just completely untrue. OK, the occasional actual fact was thrown in there from time to time. Matters of grammar were the complete worst, though, with nonsensical bugaboos and superstitions and reflections of how one person a hundred years ago thought the English language actually should be, but isn't.
ReplyDeleteThis one bamboozled me. What "reader's jottings" (31D), what MARGINALIA ANNOTATION, would only say "MARGIN"? I can't imagine a situation where I'm reading some text and would jot down "MARGIN" in the left and right MARGINs. I thought surely I must be missing something and one of you smart cookies out there in Commentaristan would enlighten me. But I guess that's all there is. "MARGIN" in the left MARGIN, "MARGIN" in the right MARGIN and MARGINALIA inside the MARGINs. Seems circular and pointless. Turned a solve buzz into a solve bummer for this old ERDY guy.
ReplyDeleteI did enjoy recalling Tycho BRAHE, he who at the age of twenty lost part of his nose in a duel and for the rest of his life wore a metal prosthesis. If I'm remembering correctly, he became one of the greatest astronomers of all time---Johannes Kepler was one of his students---before the telescope was even invented! Yes, a quick peek shows Tycho died in 1601 and the telescope was invented in 1608.
@Nancy (1:29 p.m.) Clearly, your mileage varies. The straight gin-type martinis have always hit me harder than the wetter ones, which is partly why I moved to wet ones, to slow me down. If that's not true, you're going to have to explain the mechanism by which it doesn't work, because it doesn't make a lick of sense. The only thing I could think of that is plausible is that you may drink the wetter martini faster. But that's it.
ReplyDeleteDon't have the time or patience to read all entries, so this may be a repeat, but for those of us who solve on the computer, there was no way to enter the marginal letters, so no happy tune when I solved the puzzle with the missing letters in my head.
ReplyDeleteIt took me a while to put the pieces of this puzzle together - starting all the way down at [I]CEMAN, where C for CASE had to go in the first space and so the I on the outside. That suddenly explained how HI MO[M] worked, and from there I was able to pick up the idea of the parallel MARGINs. I liked how not every line got an ANNOTATION, more like actual MARGINALIA in a book. I also liked the idea of a RACE HORSE as an ACE HORSE.
ReplyDeleteDo-overs: B-feaTURE, eSsAS before ISLAS, lO-FAT,aEgis before MEDUS[A]. No idea: DR TEETH.
A few days ago I had an error at LO CARB. Today it was LO FAT, although I caught it when I realized what a silly name ARLEL would be.
ReplyDeleteBefore I got the gimmick I had MATE at 1a, and HI MA at 10a.
[Spelling Bee: yd 4 min. to pg, then got QB right after supper. Did we have the same last word, bocamp?]
@Frantic Sloth - xwordinfo.com does, indeed, have early access to the puzzles. Constructors know at least a week ahead when their puzzles will appear. At least part of Rex’s occasional problem with xwordinfo is that the early access comes with a cost to Chen’s independence.
ReplyDeleteFWIW - this also means anything that seems timely or untimely in the puzzle is serendipity. The puzzle is set long before today’s headlines.
**Wordle Talk Alert**
@Mary McCarty - When Wordle comments first appeared here, before the NYT purchased the game, some people were using a word from the puzzle as their first word. It is just a way to get a little variety without having to think of a word on your own. Also, despite what you might read in the interwebs, the NYTs has done almost no modification to the order of word appearance the creator had set up. If the Wordle word happens to be in the puzzle it will purely be by chance. As I said earlier this week, anything you see about the NYT changing Wordle is fantasy.
MFCTM.
ReplyDeletePeter P (8:02)
Nancy (10:57)
kitshef (11:59)
oldtimer (12:20)
If I may, Merriam-Webster has an informative usage note. I am always impressed that their writers can ink something like although some commentators feel may is more appropriate in formal contexts without editorial comment. You just know they are muttering something like “misguided prescriptivists” under their breath.
ReplyDelete@Missy @Wanderlust @SFR *facepalm* Of course... Thank you all! Clearly I need to adjust my regular/decaf coffee mix.
ReplyDeleteDejligt at se Tycho Brahe i krydsordet efter min mening.
ReplyDelete@Wanderlust (1:16 PM) / @Ben (1:25 PM)
ReplyDeleteSame dilemma with DR TEETH as both of you. Got the mR changed to DR when I sussed out the MARGIN gimmick; just decided to go with T-NUT, as c-NUT was unknown to me. A bit o' luck. 🍀
@Eniale 1:30 PM 😊
About the same as you; just puttering around off and on, looking for -3.
@Gruff (2:05 PM)
I do the puz using a laptop on the NYT web site. No issue with the happy music. Chalk it up to the mysteries of cyberspace and count yourself a winner! :)
@okanaganer (2:14 PM) 👍 for QB yd
Yup! :)
___
td: very tough WordHurdle. (so far six 3s, one 4 & one 5) my first word is always this.
143 5/6 #wordhurdle #peace ()
💛🖤🖤🖤💛💛
🖤💛💛💛🖤🖤
🖤🖤💛💛🖤💛
💙💛🖤💙💛🖤
💙💙💙💙💙💙
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
@pabloinnh: I live in a small town near the border in South Texas. It's San Benito (the Resaca City). Down here, especially in Brownsville (18 miles South) we have these lovely bodies of water that flow through our towns and are the sources of city water supply and irrigation. The water comes from the nearby Rio Grande river. I've always heard and believed that these resacas were once the path of that great river.
ReplyDeleteNow, thanks to you and Google translate, I am shocked to learn that I live in the "Hangover" city! However, the proud people of San Benito and Brownsville TX will continue to translate "resaca" as "dry river bed". Thank you very much
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ReplyDelete@oldactor-See, that's a meaning of "resaca" that I didn't know, so thanks returned. I think "Hangover City" would be a wonderfully colorful name, but then again I don't live there.
ReplyDeleteNice to hear from you.
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete@Ciclista21
ReplyDeleteMany possible criticisms , but "arbitrary"??! 12 letters outside the grid, perfectly symmetrical , spelling "MARGIN", with 2 in-grid 10 letter, symmetrical revealers. Must be some new definition of arbitrary I'm not familiar with.
Loved it myself, though found it tough. But I do solve on paper so the letters are not "missing" just in the margins. Would have been a good time to have a note saying "for fullest enjoyment today's puzzle should be solved on paper".
@Nancy
Gotta share favorite "living or dead" story:
Someone was asked if they could have dinner with anyone at all, living or dead, who would it be?
Answer: "Donald Trump, dead".
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DeleteWhit, come back any time -- I love your understated style!
ReplyDelete@David 5:36. That is now my new and permanent answer to the "anyone, living or dead" question. Legit LOLed.
ReplyDelete@jberg - I did the same thing with the initial M in MATE.
ReplyDelete@Frantic - I agree, needing to remember (or at least revisit) a week’s worth of puzzles puts the ZOW idea in prohibitive territory. That said, I also find myself disagreeing with Jeff’s choices on occasion.
@Nancy - I’m not sure what the difference is between “hit harder” and “drunker” is ?
For others using the app on an iPad - this is a little cumbersome, but it helped me: partway through solving I took a screenshot and used "Markup" to write in the 5 "extra" letters I had on the edges of the photo. It was enough to let me see the parallel MARGINs and the spacing of the letters.
ReplyDeleteoldactor @3:00 there was a large resaca behind the house when I lived in Brownsville, large enough for boats to pull skiers. My understanding is that before the Rio Grande River was brought under control, annual flooding of "el valle" carved out many small lakes and when the flooding receded the little lakes would remain and hold water until the next year's flooding. I guess they are called resacas because they are like "hangovers" from past floodings.
ReplyDeleteI think they are similar to what in other places are called oxbow lakes.
Brownsville's resacas play an important role in flood prevention during periods of heavy rain such as when hurricanes come calling. Excess rainwater drains into the resacas. Neighboring Matamoros across the border filled in all their resacas as the city grew and now during heavy rains the entire city is under a foot or more of water.
Anoa Bob,
ReplyDeleteThank you. I’ve been reading this blog for a decade. Your post of 7:12 is the best comment I’ve ever seen here.
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ReplyDeleteThat is so funny, @David (5:36)!!
ReplyDeleteYou're pretty darn funny too, @Gorelick (4:32).
@jae -- I think I was just trying to be tactful:)
"Eid mubarak" is incorrect in this context. You say "Ramadan karim" during Ramadan, "Eid mubarak" when it's done.
ReplyDeleteAdding to the digital schadenfreude… I just printed out tomorrow’s puzzle, the newspaper version, which comes with the correct solution. MARGIN is printed in the grid MARGIN. So, technically, it is impossible to have the correct solution if you solve the Thursday puzzle online.
ReplyDeleteRegarding “Eid Mubarak,” while I think @da kine and @Wanderlust are technically correct, (sort of like saying “Merry Christmas” at the beginning of Advent) most Muslims I know would accept it as a nice gesture close to saying “happy holiday.”
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ReplyDeleteThin and clunky sums it up.
ReplyDeletePS - Stumped by Wordle today. Too many possibilities for the remaining letters.
ReplyDeleteWordle 320 X/6*
ReplyDelete⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟨🟩⬜⬜🟨
⬜🟩🟨🟩⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
PARKING PARES
ReplyDeleteDid YOU HEAR they MATED with her ASSENT,
so SUSAN knows the HOMETEAM now?
TODATE those MEN,U know that HOAR went
where NO ARTTEACHER should AVOW.
--- DR. MEDUSA BRAHE
Do not like this type of puz, especially filling in 1a with MATE where the multi-tense 'beat' fouled it up. Inkfest there.
ReplyDeleteAlso NOFAT NOPARKING TODATE TOYOU ungood repeats.
Surprised nobody mentioned the symmetric HOME and AWAY.
@spacey will appreciate yeah baby SELA Ward.
Second wordle ever:
BYYBB
BBBGG
GGGGG
Thursday puzzles usually require some outside-the-box thinking; this time that's true literally. We have had similar themes before, but today there's a cool twist: the margins are actually MARGINs. I like that the revealer, off to one side, at least has a fraternally-clued partner.
ReplyDeleteExtra letters spill all over the place--but in perfect order. A couple appear in the fill: BPICTURE and PTRAP (I will let PGATOUR go, because it's the PGATOUR); those are not so lovely, but I'm beginning to think I'd better make up my mind to tolerate them, because it looks like they're here to stay. Just please try to stay away from TTOP, that one's SOOO bad!
A nice puzzle, gettable but not too readily, as befits Thursday. Marisa TOMEI enjoys a turn at DOD. Approached with an IRON and sank the putt. Birdie.
Bad guesses caused a Wordle bogey here, but by the time I reached the exploring stage there were basically only two more choices. I picked the other one first.
YBBBY
BGYBY
GGBGG
GGBGG
GGGGG
I prefer crossword puzzles.
ReplyDeleteDiana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
Stunk. Rejected and flushed.
ReplyDeleteArrgh! SELA baby! How did I miss you?!? Forgive me my love!
ReplyDeleteHere I am, doing an old puzzle and posting a comment that will probably never get read. I have to note that the word ATARI does not in fact come from the game of go, any more than the word "goal" comes from soccer, or the word "run" comes from baseball. In fact, it is a word that means "hit" or "strike" or "bingo", or "You win!". It's a word than might be used when hitting a target, perhaps in archery or a game like Battleship, or when you answer a question correctly in a game show, or complete a crossword. I grew up in Japan, and as a child one could buy four orange gumballs in a small box. In the inside flap was written either the word ATARI or "hazure" (You lose!). If it said ATARI, you could bring the box back to the store to get another free box. I bought a pack of ten boxes for nostalgia's sake at an oriental grocery store here in the Midwest, and when one was an ATARI, I was saddened that I couldn't experience the joy I once had of bringing it back for a freebie. Ahh, lost childhood!
ReplyDeleteI read it. Just did this puzzle today. Drove me up the wall. I find it odd that I’m learning the origin of the word atari more than 40 years after I was gifted one at age 8.
DeleteWhit, that funny little diacritic in Noël Coward's name is called a dieresis. It's used to indicate the start of a new syllable (for example, 'coöperation'). Which is interesting, given that I *think* Mr. Coward pronounced his name more like "mole" than "noEL". And which I suppose supports the assertion that "he just decided to do it." -- Bur Davis.
ReplyDelete