Desert whose soil has been compared to that of Mars / SUN 3-6-22 / Pink pad on a paw in slang / Syrian city with historic citadel / Organic energy molecule for short / Rowing machine informally / Harry Styles tune about a woman who lives in daydreams / Ross Perot founded it in 1995 / Rococo painter of Allegory of the Planets and Continents / La Corse par exemple / Nickel found in a pocket say
Constructor: Matthew Stock and Will Nediger
Relative difficulty: Medium (though I finished with an error—Natick City! Population: me)
THEME: "Parlor Trick" — the grid is supposed to look like a PACHINKO game, kinda. Longer answers make vague reference to the game, and there's a string of "O"s (see circled squares) that is supposed to represent a ball falling through PACHINKO machine (the letters to PACHINKO are found in the unchecked squares reading from top to bottom, left to right in the grid):
Theme answers:
PATH TO VICTORY (3D: Election night calculation ... or what's traced by the circled letters)
FALL INTO PLACE (17D: Become clear ... or make like the object represented by the circled letters)
NAME OF THE GAME (82A: Something's essential aspect ... or what's spelled out by letters in this puzzle's eight "cups") (this refers to the unchecked squares that spell PACHINKO)
FOLLOW THE BOUNCING BALL (103A: Karaoke instruction ... or what to do starting at 10-Down) (this refers to all those "O"s)
Word of the Day: PACHINKO (see ... well, the puzzle) —
Pachinko (パチンコ) is a type of mechanical game originating in Japan that is used as a form of recreational arcade game, and much more frequently as a gamblingdevice, filling a niche in Japanese gambling comparable to that of the slot machine in Western gambling, as a form of low-stakes, low-strategy gambling.
Pachinko parlors are widespread in Japan, and usually also feature a number of slot machines (called pachislo or pachislots) so these venues look and operate similarly to casinos. Modern pachinko machines have both mechanical and digital components. // A pachinko machine resembles a vertical pinball machine, but is different from Western pinball in several ways. It uses small (11 mm diameter) steel balls, which the owner rents to the player (usually a "pachinko parlor," featuring many individual games in rows), while pinball games use a larger, captive ball.
The player loads one or more balls into the machine, then presses and releases a spring-loaded handle, which is attached to a padded hammer inside the machine, launching the ball into a metal track. The track guides the ball over the top of the playing field; then when it loses momentum, it falls into the playing field. Some pachinko machines have a bumper to bounce the ball as it reaches the top, while others allow it to travel all the way around the field, to fall the second time it reaches the top.
The playing field is populated by numerous brass pins, several small cups into which the player hopes the ball will fall (each catcher is barely the width of the ball), and a hole at the bottom into which the ball falls if it does not enter a catcher. The ball bounces from pin to pin, both slowing its descent and deflecting it laterally across the field. A ball that enters a catcher triggers a payout, in which a number of balls are dropped into a tray at the front of the machine. (wikipedia)
• • •
I haven't seen a PACHINKO machine since ... well, it's a weird story involving a very hazy memory I have of going to the house of this woman my dad was dating between his first marriage (to my mom) and his second marriage (to my stepmom). Anyway, I remember being left in this woman's living room for a period of time, possibly with the woman's son, possibly with my sister, definitely with a PACHINKO machine that the woman had in her house For Some Reason. It was mesmerizing. I was nine years old. Lord knows what my dad and this lady were doing during this time. I have not seen a PACHINKO machine since, or thought about one much either. And then ... time passed. And here we are. You kinda have to be familiar with the look and function of the things for this grid to be at all meaningful. I guess the letters to PACHINKO are in the places of what are called "catchers" (see Word of the Day description, above)—if your ball falls in one, you get a payout of some kind. As architectural feats go, this one seems pretty good. Again, it all doesn't mean a lot to me, and the "bouncing ball" is pretty anemic, but the part where the grid looks like a PACHINKO machine and the letters spelling out PACHINKO are inside the "catchers," that is interesting. The turning of familiar phrases to thematic purposes is clever as well. The theme isn't really for me, but it's got ... something. It's creative and original.
I was sad to finish things off, in the NE corner, with an absolute textbook Natick. I couldn't have been Naticked any harder if I'd tried. No idea. I just couldn't remember the name of the desert in question at 22A: Desert whose soil has been compared to that of Mars (ATACAMA), and that wouldn't have been so bad—I frequently don't know, or half know, or kinda sorta half-know but mostly forget, proper nouns like ATACAMA all the time. But this time one of the crosses was an initialism whose initials meant absolutely nothing to me (ATP is short for adenosine triphosphate). I had A-P at 14D: Organic energy compound, for short (ATP), and ... nothing. Zip. Couldn't even conceive what the "A" or the "P" stand for. So, A-ACAMA crossing A-P, the end. That's all, folks. If I'm alone in eating it at that crossing, well that's on me. I know I've seen both ATACAMA and ATP before. But even now I can't tell you where ATACAMA is*. And I've seen ATP only once, and only in a (recent-ish) puzzle. Sigh. I wish I knew more of everything. Usually crosswords are constructed where my blindspots are overcomeable through crosses. I get well and truly Naticked maybe once or twice a year? These moments almost always involve proper nouns, initialisms, or both. Today, both. Anyway, today was one of those days. (Note: the term "Natick" itself came from the crossing of proper nouns and initials, with Natick crossing N.C. Wyeth at the "N")
Don't remember much else about this grid besides the PACHINKO-ness and my Natick. Lots of political proper nouns (SHALALA, HAALAND, REFORM PARTY). Found the SE corner the hardest because, again, as with ATP, a familiar three-letter answer was clued in a way I didn't know (rowing machine = ERG) (I probably should've mentioned earlier that the ATP is the Association of Tennis Professionals, which is main org. of men's pro tennis ... if only that had been the clue today ...). Along with ERG, I wasn't really familiar with GOOBER used precisely this way (94D: Foolish sort), and I had MINCED for FINELY (111A: Into really small pieces) and then, later, HUGELY before HIGHLY (88D: Super). But nothing else really troubled me. KEELEY seems very very hard unless you are a huge Ted Lasso fan (I am such a fan, and even I still had to think about it) (109A: P.R. consultant on "Ted Lasso"). DEVILED also bedeviled me a little (81D: Cooked with hot seasoning). Didn't know TRACY (38A: ___ K. Smith, poet who won a Pulitzer for "Life on Mars"). But I flew through most of the rest of it. Quite enjoyed "THAT'S A BIG IF" and, especially, TOE BEAN (44D: Pink pad on a paw, in slang)—when we first got our cat Alfie, as a kitten, I used to call him "TOE BEAN Maguire" because he had (and still has) one lone pink TOE BEAN.
[One Pink TOE BEAN To Rule Them All!]
One announcement today: Veteran constructor Jeff Chen has a new book of puzzles out this Tuesday. It's called The Best Puzzle Books for Adults, which sounds sexy, but is probably not "for adults" in exactly that way. Still, it sounds great. It's got a range of puzzle types and difficulty levels, and sounds like the perfect thing to have lying around the house, if your house is full of puzzle people. It's already the #1 Crossword Puzzle book on Amazon and it's only in the Pre-Order stage. Here's the blurb!
Whether you’re new to puzzles or you’ve been enjoying them for decades, this book offers popular puzzle types to captivate and enthrall you, from time-honored classics to creative new takes. Crosswords, brain teasers, word searches, logic grids, sudoku, calcudoku, and cryptograms -- something for everyone!
I have TWO copies of the book to give away, so if you want one, just email me at rexparker at icloud dot com with the worst blunder you made while solving crosswords this week, and I'll choose two random blunderers as book recipients by the end of the day (I'll probably also publish some of the blunders next week—anonymously, of course :)
See you tomorrow, or whatever I see you.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
*ATACAMA is west of the Andes along the Pacific coast of central South America
the yellow bits on this map
[Update: [Cold open?] is CEE because the "open"ing letter of "cold" is a CEE. I've been doing so many cryptic crosswords that I didn't think this needed explaining but I can tell (from my messages) that I was wrong. Sorry]
I normally enjoy puzzles by either Stock or Nediger and this combo only doubled my pleasure. More challenging and less of a slog than we often get on Sunday. And different, too. I liked it a lot!
Tough! Lots of WOEs that eventually succumbed to educated guesses but it took a long time. Fortunately ATACAMA rose to the surface of my memory because ATP was one of the WOEs and I would have had an @Rex DNF. Impressive construction, liked it but it was a bumpy ride.
...and speaking of PACHINKO I highly recommend the book of the same name by Min Jin Lee.
Fantastic book! And the Pachinlo parlors in Japan (ubiquitous in Tokyo) are loud, very smoky and kind of insane. Folks are obsessed, and sit there, check by jowl, for hours and hours day and/or night!
Naticked at the same spot as Rex. Plus never heard of PACHINKO - kept thinking it was a boxer or actor. So I never understood the theme. At all. Hated this one.
Rex I love the personal stories often told by our fellow commenters, and your Pachinko one is pretty solid. Never even seen a game, myself. I'll take your word for it that today's grid has something to do with it. Even not knowing the game, it was still kinda fun.
My troubles were in the SW corner. THE HELP, ALVEOLAR, FOIA, KEELEY were all total unknowns to me. FOIA I realized once I saw it complete, must stand for Freedom of Info Act. But just a big mud bog down there.
I normally dislike names but am surprised that GOPRO was not clued as such.
[Spelling Bee: Fri 0, Sat 3:24 to reach pg, then another 25 min or so to get to QB. 2 quick days in a row! My last 9 days, starting on Feb 25: 0, 0, 0, -1, 0, 0, -1, 0, 0. Not too bad!]
I’m utterly unfamiliar with how a Pachinko game works, so this one took a minute to suss out. FOLLOW THE BOUNCING BALL reminds me of Shakey’s Pizza and its nifty sing-alongs.
Like Rex – I had “hugely” before HIGHLY and “minced” before FINELY. And, yeah, that ATACAMA/ATP cross I just left blank and traced the empty blank heavily in pencil, as is my wont with true Naticks.
“Linzer” before SACHER. Bet we’re legion this morning. Thing is, I’ve actually eaten SACHERTORTE at The Hotel Sacher in Vienna. Man, am I all well-traveled and sophisticated. (I have a new friend here, a lawyer, and she’s talking about including Vienna in an upcoming trip. Says she wants to have coffee in a Viennese coffee shop. I told her it’s so cool that you get a little wrapped chocolate with your coffee, hoping that she recognizes that I’m worldly and smart even though I’m not a lawyer – I couldn’t really tell.)
Never heard the phrase GLOW UP, but I love it.
UPSELLS – why does Spectrum or any other company think you’re in the mood to buy stuff from a business that has kept you on hold for 20 minutes, this after going to battle with that insistent robot who’s hell-bent on making you sort out your problem without speaking to an actual person? Jeez Louise.
Loved, loved, loved I’M LIKE. And the clue! I loved that it shifted tense. I’ll remind everyone that I’M LIKE does more semantic work than I GO because I’M LIKE extends to maybe just what you were thinking but not actually saying:
“Oh. Duke lost? So very sorry for Coach K but thrilled for the Heels. Good game.” But I’M LIKE Good riddance buddy how fun to beat you in Cameron in your final game ever to coach there sayonara baby don’t let the arena door hitcha on the way out.
I have to brag that back when he was a player, I used to speak to Hubert Davis every single day as I was leaving Murphy Hall where my office was to cross over to Dey Hall to teach my classes. We always passed each other, and I would pester him about whatever game was coming up or had just been played. So I guess I’m kind of a big deal.
Lots to love here for a linguist. ALVEOLAR, PHONEME, TRILLED. Think you can’t roll your R’s? If you say butter and concentrate on your tongue action for those two T’s – you’ve just done an initial roll. If you say it really fast like 10 times, you’ll start getting the feel of a TRILLED R. You’re welcome.
Serendipity – Yesterday I was telling Mom a funny story about teaching linguistics at Carolina YAY HEELS. I’m pretty sure I’m repeating myself here, but that has never stopped me before. . . The TA who taught in the same room after me, the same course, always sat in on my class so she’d already be in the room; she was terrified of talking to a class, and this apparently helped her. I was teaching the very difficult concept of PHONEME and how it actually represents a family of allophones – all similar sounds. I told my class that the T’s in top, stop, pot were all different in their articulation. I was winging it and said It’s like there’s this T-ness about them. Marjorie thought this was a swell way to explain it. Unfortunately she chose the P’s in pot, spot, and top (see where this is going?) When she said It's like there’s this P-ness about them she told me it took her a minute to understand why the class erupted.
OK sorry can't resist. I just said "I love the personal stories often told by our fellow commenters", then 8 minutes later Lauren posts a classic.
So: my brother worked in a building supply store. He was discussing something with a colleague when a woman customer who wanted help looked at him, waved her arms and said "Oh, yoo hoo!" So he replied without thinking: "Hey, yoo hoo-er?"
I can’t believe that until today I had never noticed that PHONEME is a dook for PHONE ME. Seems like a good basis for a number in a musical.
If you don’t know a bat from a cat Well the PHONEME’s the rat So PHONE ME.
I know that @Nancy could do something clever with this concept, and I hope she does.
I loved “So the my response was…” as the clue for IMLIKE (18D). “I’m like” is such an encompassing descriptive because it can be the lead in to how you responded to something verbally, emotionally, physically or any other way.
I didn’t love this puzzle. The uncrossed hangers that spelled out PACHINKO just rubbed me the wrong way. So did the fact that 17 squares were obviously “o” once you saw it, which I did very early. But, nonetheless, a good collaboration, for which I thank you, Mathew Stock and Will Nediger.
My brother has a little hoarding problem and just loves odd items. One year he bought us a PACHINKO machine for Christmas, so this puzzle was great fun for me. We had it set up in our living room for years and it was a great hit at parties, but man it was loud.
My father was from Vienna and SACHER torte was his favorite dessert. It was one of the first things my Grandma Sophie taught me how to bake. I’ve also had it at the SACHER Hotel (Hi Loren), mine is almost as good, but not quite.
Embarrassing crossword moment, putting in WAZOO instead of KAZOO. @Foodie would remember.
Thanks to everyone yesterday who was kind enough to offer their thoughts on the Wordle statistics bugs. Bottom line, I'm certain of just one thing. Wordle started of as a friendly, fun little diversion that functioned flawlessly, at least on my device. The NYTs took over and turned it into an unending string of annoyances. Thanks NYts, for nothing.
(The cherry on top? If they paid the app's originator about $1.5 million, as I believe was reported, they robbed him blind. He apparently had no idea what all those eyeballs, seven days a week, could be leveraged into.)
We used to play Parcheesi at home whenever we had a large enough group. One of my aunts pronounced it "Pacheesi," so when I saw PACH----, that's what I put in. D'oh! That sorted itself out eventually, but I joined @Rex, @LMS and others in Natick, moving in lock, stock and ATP.
Was also clueless about ATACAMA/ATP, so I broke down and looked up the Wikipedia article on “List of Deserts.” The list is grouped by continent rather than alphabetically, but a search on “acama” turns up the answer quickly. Then I looked up ATP to find out wtf *that* is.
Otherwise, north was fairly fast, SW not quite so, and SE took quite a while (neither minced nor finely were on my radar, and I rather absentmindedly wrote car race for CAR SALE and when I realized mine wasn’t working, doubted the car part first). Never heard of PACHINKO, although I had played with a similar toy as a child — I think the first time was a version my grandfather brought with him from Czechoslovakia, so the link to Japan was also new.
So I continue to console myself that I’m learning things from my time spent.
DNF/DNC, you know where. The opening paragraph of that Wikilink for ATP mentions AmP and AdP. JFC. I’m sure somebody will be around to explain how important ATP is and how the clue could only be for ATP and we’re all ignorant philistines for not know it and “how could dr. rex not know this,”… to which I say, “JFC that was bad.”
As for PACHINKO, fairly or not it made the puzzle skew dead to me. Maybe there are lots and lots of people still playing PACHINKO, but to me it is something old people play, and not old like I am now but old when I was 7 meaning they’re all dead now. I just looked it up and it is a huge thing in Japan, but to me it is more like the relic Rex describes, just something that you’d find in some random old person’s house as a kid. Anyways… This struck me as incredibly dated. I wondered briefly if there was a PACHINKO fad amongst the youngs that I was missing, but it looks like it is just a huge gambling game in Japan.
Highlight of the puzzle was the MOWER clue. Steel blades and blades of grass. Nice.
@Brian A in SLC - I will happily chastise the NYT for many things, but the Wordle transition is not one of them. For me and the vast majority of people the transition was seamless. Even the most common problem, the loss of individuals’ stats, is minor and mostly a result of things well beyond the NYT’s control. As for monetizing Wordle, it’s early still but my Wordle page is the same except for the url at the top.
Speaking of Wordle - first Eagle in ages and because of the vowels I eliminated with my first guess it felt earned. Wordle 260 2/6
ATP - adenosine triphosphate ADP diPhosphate. AMP - monophosohate That third P in ATP is used for energy needs, e.g. muscle contraction. Used to be taught in college only but now in elementary school.
Some post-solve observations: • I loved seeing the face in the grid, complete with a defined chin, eyebrows, and bindi. • Will Nediger, who designed the grid (according to the constructor notes), has serious constructing chops. There were so many theme elements – the “cups”, ball path, and the four long answers, and he managed to space them all apart. • The answer OBOE had appeared in the NYT 780 times before today, but never with a clue like [It’s blown in the winds]. Props for creativity. • I did read “Pachinko” (Min Jin Lee, 2017) and it was one of my favorite reads of the year. Highly recommended. • I guessed in two spots – the last letters of ATACAMA and TOEBEAN, and, to my surprise, I guessed right in both cases. • My favorite clue/answer: [“So then my response was…”] for I’M LIKE. • Aside from the face in the grid, I saw those two monkey wrenches entering from the sides. Immediately what popped into my head was “Throwing a monkey wrench into the fire”, and when I looked this phrase up, I learned that a mashing of idioms is called a malaphor. That’s a great discovery that I will remember.
The solve overall felt refreshing and involving, and isn’t that THE NAME OF THE GAME? Thank you, gentlemen!
Thx Matthew & Will, for this 'tricky' Sun. puz! :)
Med-hard.
Pretty slow going; I almost got it right. Had UH NO / NAOHI for the dnf. Guessed the 'I' in TIEPOLO, but couldn't see NAOMI; NAOHI seemed plausible. I'd try for @Rex's prize, but refuse to read any books in dead tree mode.
Also had a lucky guess at ATP / ATACAMA, altho somehow the 'T' seemed to resonate. I think we had it last year, or maybe it was in a non-MYT xword not too long ago.??
Didn't know PACHINKO cups, but do now. Thx @Rex.
Lots of other unknowns, but fair crosses came to the rescue. :)
Enjoyed the workout; always grateful for the mental effort required of Sun. NYT xwords. 🤔
@okanaganer 👍 for a bunch of recent 0's ___ yd pg: 3:10 / W: 5*
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
When I approached a publisher, Along with other stats the number of reviews on my book mattered. I used usbookreviews.com to get 100+ reviews. This immensely helped me get a traditional publisher. Now I am also looking to sell movie rights for my novel to a medium sized studio in Hollywood.
Interesting how one man's (or woman's) Natick is another's gimme. Atacama I knew from various astronomy radio shows... It's the driest, most cloudless place on earth; perfect for telescopes. I was a bio major so ATP (part of the notorious Kreb's cycle) was obvious. I never quite understood the chemistry of the Kreb's cycle though I did know it was the mechanism by which energy is released, metabolically speaking. It produced the energy that allowed me to move my fingers, playing the guitar. I had the option of learning Alice's Restaurant off the record or studying for an ecology mid-term. Suffice it to say, 50 years later, I can still play Alice's Restaurant.
I can appreciate the chops here but it didn’t connect well. Attractive gridwork and the theme works I guess - not sure the circles should have been used. Cluing was disjoint - odd trivia and some decent wordplay. Like @Z the one that stood out for me was MOWER. The emotion of DISGORGE is neat and thankfully I knew ATACAMA.
Rough name day for me - swing and miss on HAALAND, NAOMI, TRACY and others. My mom’s DEVILED eggs were not hot.
Too many things I'm not familiar with in this grid including a double Natick (ATACAMA/ATP and PACHINKO/TOEBEAN). Toss in ALVEOLAR over FOIA, and I finally resorted to "Reveal Puzzle."
Impressive feat of construction and reminder of all the things Tom T "don't know."
I'm taking some perverse pleasure in knowing ATACAMA, but that doesn't mean I avoided a DNF. Do I know the Lord in Hebrew Bible? Apparently not. ADONAh looked fine, and I gave up trying to figure out what the name of that game i could see in my head (and the grid) was. IMLIKE "screw it, will find out later". Completely annoyed I can't even blame a Natick - done in by an unchecked box. Awful. Enjoyed some of the cluing and some of the answers. IROC, ASSISI, OKAPI, and CASTE all handled the "remind you of things in your life you're glad you remember" role. Just really wanted the jingle after finishing this beast and couldn't get it.
ATP probably the most important compound in cellular biology. The common unit of energy to all life on Earth. Just read a NewYorker article about breakthroughs in the understanding of cells, and I don’t think the author mentioned this or anything about energy, ions, enzymes or catalysts. FOIA, Keeley and Cee not my favorites, had a tougher time than usual with some of the short clues but different and creative as Rex says.
This week on CSI: Natick – The CSI's determine that a Chilean desert teamed up with an energy cell in a successful attempt to prevent Rex's crossword finish.
I became so disinterested in this thing that I just abandoned it halfway through. I got the left side done and some of the right, but since I never heard of Pachinko I had no concept of what was being represented by the grid. "Why is there a string of O's winding down the middle?" I asked myself. "You're asking me?" myself responded. I was disappointed, I was hoping for something more fun after yesterday's blast.
Now I must take my leave, for I've pledged my TROTH to Lady Jane. We are going SNOGging this afternoon.
Last night was the first time we watched Ted Lasso, so this was "witchy" to see a clue related to the series (which we did not get). We're looking forward to watching the entire series.
I was impressed by this feat of construction but must say was underwhelmed by such answers as UMNO, IMLIKE, OHLOOK, and YEAHOK. And never heard of a TOEBEAN, so thanks for the photo of the cat's paw, Rex.
Slick theme, which I’m sure was no easy task to pull of. For me, the collateral damage to the grid and fill is not worth it. By the time all is said and done, you have for example a section like the mid-west with ISOPOD, SACHER, PHONEME and TOE BEAN. I’m sorry, but those are barely even real words. That whole section is a linguistic pile of junk.
Things don’t improve much elsewhere, as the grid has to accommodate the likes of a HAALAND, ALVEOLAR, SHALALA ,ATACAMA , KEELEY and even a SNOG. Sorry, but really diminished joy when the objective of the puzzle distills down to parsing together every single cross to come up with something that looks like a plausible quasi-word; then rinse and repeat. Just awful.
The Times crew really needs to rethink the whole philosophy behind embracing stuff like GLOW OLD. They do it all the time, and it is soooooooo unnecessary.
Just awful in every way. Disjointed, nonsensical theme; ridiculous proper names; non-word answers; gobs of “conversational” entries; joyless cluing. Won't belabor it, I'll just move on.
INLIKE is not English. Kramer mentions a pachinko machine in one episode , don't remember which, and there is a game show on NBC right now that features essentially a giant pachinko machine. Still common today in smaller versions as kid toys. Not obscure at all. Except for IMLIKE which caused some delays in NE, a quick and entertaining solve for me.
Very, very clever puzzle. I liked it alot even though I knew nothing about Pachinko. I did read up on it and it sounds like an interesting game. Love crosswords that I learn something by doing them.
More proof that, "if you know it, it's easy, if you don't, it's impossible". Case in point for me, ATACAMA, which I knew from teaching some South American geography, and also remembered ss the driest place on earth, vs. TOEBEAN, which was a total WTF. Also the last letter was uncrossed, so no help there. PACHINKO to the rescue, as it now head to be an N, darn it. I was secretly hoping for an R and a TOEBEAR.
Knew PHONEME and ALVEOLAR from teaching a language, and I think my TRILLING ability was why I got interested in Spanish in the first place. Agree with LMS's suggestion for the "butter" trick, I find that "ladder" works much the same way.
If you solved top down and saw the string of O's it was fun to fill them all in after you had a few, sort of like being the ball failing in the game.
Most of the long answers were pretty obvious. Very helpful.
Not often we get a stunt puzzle on a Sunday and I haven't been able to type "stunt puzzle" for a while, so yay for that.
Nice enough Sunday, MS and WN. Mostly Solid and With Negligible dreck, so thanks for all the fun.
I normally like all sorts of games, but this one passed me by. So, with the unchecked squares meaning nothing to me, I became plagued by the PPP. Oddly, I am currently watching archived copies of the PBS Nature shows, which many years ago featured the desert a a few of them. Did that make the solve any more pleasant for me? Not really. I certainly understand why this puzzle was accepted and published. Sadly, it is just not a puzzle for me.
In general, games that involve only luck and not skill do not interest me. Arcade games that limit how long you can play a game no matter what you do, or games that require impossibly fast reflexes, are simply not for me. Like this puzzle was not for me, for different reasons.
Well, because I kind of knew ATP, I didn't natick there, but fully sympathize with those who did. My natick came with Pachinko/Adonai because I was not sure of the spelling of either, and "misremembered" (sorry GWB) Pachinko as Pachenko. This is the problem with this kind of construction... it's clever as all getout in theory, but in practice only works if the tbeme answer is in everyone's wheelhouse, and as the comments heretofore indicate, PACHINKO definitely is not, at least not here in the West.
Many marvel at the beauty of Paris, but I found Vienna more captivating, so 50D brought back some good memories at a time when recent ones aren't so great.
I guess PACHINKO machines were somewhat popular in the 60s and 70s in the US, at least in some circles? My best friend's mother had one in their game room. I had never seen one before, and haven't seen one since. It seemed like a cross between a pinball machine (but vertical) and a slot machine.
I’m not going to Google which would no doubt prove my theory wrong but I’m thinking that GLOW UP is a phrase coined by the constructors as a nod to the Pachinko theme.
Well, it's over. That's about all I can say. Failed in the atp area and could not care less. Some nice moments but the cutesy cluing really grated.
So we had one really good puzzle this week and the rest was garbage.
@LMS, re. " Coach K ", with you all the way. Cried about every call that didn't go his way, and was a master at teaching kids how to "flop" and get the charge call.
Was it just me who'd never heard of this game? I went and looked it up. Turns out that there's only one PACHINKO parlor in the entire United States. The game is big in Japan, so maybe that's where this puzzle should have been published???
All that work to build a complicated grid that will be completely meaningless to the preponderance of NYTXW solvers? I just don't get it.
Congrats to my sometimes collaborator Will N. for pulling off what was probably a very challenging construction task. But you'd better believe that it's a task that I would never in a million years have thrown at you.
A fine feat of construction, but one where it feels to clever by half. Architecturally impressive but a lot of slog by fill to get there. The gimmick doesn’t pay off in enjoyment.
Hey All ! Must've watched too much "The Price Is Right" growing up, because I could only think of PLINKO. What is this PACHINKO you're telling me about? I said. Har.
Real funky grid, replicating a PACHINKO board. Constructors did a helluva job on it. Did end up with a massive Blockers count, though. 92! Wow. Normal max is about 76-78. Yet there's still lots of open space.
Had 5 wrong letters in, leading to my DNF. Finished up in that tough SW corner, but amazingly got everything correct there. ALVEOLAR wha? FOIA who? Had to Goog for KEELEY just to finish that area. One other Goog for SACHER, as big unknown and stuck in that section also. DNF stuff: VIdA/dOEBEAr (dOEBEAr, TOEBEAN, whatevs), AlACAMA/AlP (agree with Rex on Natick! alert), HAALANi/DODiER (did flirt with the correct D at first), SWaNG/OPa.
So a cool construction feat, neat visual, but some tough entries. First thought was puz had to do with football, with the "cups" resembling field goal posts. SWING and a miss (to mix sports metaphors).
Defender I have never heard of pachinko and to make the theme about something that obscure left me out, but I did know of the Atacama which was noteworhy to me because I had read, surprisingly, that it was the driest place on earth! I expected a more famous desert for that claim.
I think this is the second time we've had ADONAI in the crossword, and both times I've felt trepidation entering the name of God that is not to be uttered except in prayer.
:-) I was raised in a crazy right-wing church and I hate it when ASS (I'm like, the donkey?) is an answer because I think I am going to (HECK) for filling in curse words. I think we can forgive our sacrilegious ways if we remember how many people are praying while filling out the NYTXW.
I encountered the exact same Natick as Rex as my last answer - it was a pure guessing game. I found the puzzle thoroughly unenjoyable - the gimmick was way too finicky, clues were way to bland. A boring slog.
You know, I always wanted to learn how to construct crossword puzzles. It seems really hard but fascinating. Maybe one day I'll learn. And I don't construct crossword puzzles but I do construct other types of puzzles, and I always am interested in seeing how the solver's reactions line up with my hopes for their experience. I appreciate what I image as the "hey, let's make a puzzle that looks like a Pachinko game!" moment for the constructors, and the cleverness and effort it took to put it together. But for me, the actual solving of the puzzle was confusing and joyless. I couldn't find a unifying theme - politics? (couple political references) karaoke? and by the time I found it, the actual theme did not help with the solve and there was nary an "Aha!" in sight. Sorry; not for me.
There goes my streak. I had to stop it before I started wishing bad things to whoever created this mess. Been playing for years and can’t remember disliking a puzzle so much. Zero enjoyment…. Aaaah…. That felt good….
@OFL: I was sad to finish things off, in the NE corner, with an absolute textbook Natick. I couldn't have been Naticked any harder if I'd tried. No idea. I just couldn't remember the name of the desert in question
Another case of the 'educated' Fearless Leader should have taken one or two hard science (in the opposite to Social) courses. Or seen a recent Bond movie (don't recall the title...). Or watch Science Channel. And so on.
Defender, Beat me to driest place on Earth comment. For that reason, it’s always been, or since I’ve been trivia, a common name to me. ATP and ADP are high school biology tent poles. With DNA, ATP is most important molecule in basic bio. Every time o See that insipid commercial for the alarm company ADP, I roll my eyes. Apparently, I’m the outlier here. As for OFL, he’s not a dr., he’s a PhD. Big difference. But more important, I feel terribly sorry for him. His memory of pachinko is of his dad sniffing around a woman, not his wife or Rex’s mother with him in tow. That’s grim. I mean, who cats around with his son ( and possibly daughter) in the next room? Set aside, that Rex’s dad is violating his marriage vows, it’s creepy to expose your children to your extramarital affairs.
For the definitive pachinko scene in film, watch Lost in Translation, there’s a marvelous scene of a peripatetic tic Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson, ahem, pin balling through a pachinko parlor.
Joe D., note the sound work , especially the auditory segue from the parlor to the street. As god as it gets.
Challenging and fun to figure out. Talk about a lot going on! Would that I had understood the pin-ball-like nature of PACHINKO - it would have reflected what was for me rather dizzying solve, with sudden shifts (karaoke to elections?) triggering internal "Tilt" signs. I wasn't sure how it all fit together, but the ride was sure enjoyable - also the unusual grid design and the satisfyingly solid theme phrases.
Re: ATACAMA - I had the benefit of a 7th grade teacher who absolutely pounded geography into us. Today I needed the desert to remind me of ATP.
On the new-to-me front...Fun to learn TOE BEAn; surprise at the 2As in HAALAND and at finding out that PACHINKO is not a board game.
TOEBEAd makes at least as much sense as TOEBEAn to those of us without pets. REALLY awful to have that hanging there without the possibility of getting it via the cross (as I did with ATP, as ATACAMA is a gimme).
My feelings about this puzzle were not positive to begin with, but took a nosedive with this gimmickry. Do better.
I got stuck in the same area as you. My mistake was with Atacama. I thought it was a subdivision in Natick. I don’t mind a nice challenge, but this area had two obscure references crossing.
For those of you following your religious conviction to never Google anything related to a puzzle (why?), this comment isn't for you, but for those of you with a sense of humor and Google Maps, you might want to read the one-star reviews of the Atacama desert. Pretty hilarious.
When I was about 7 years old my family lived in a Navy Housing Project in San Pedro. Everyone I knew had at least one pachinko machine, we had two. I still have one of them. It used to have the price sticker on it. I don't remember the exact price but it was well under $5.
So that along with my being a science nerd put this puzzle in my wheelhouse.
Both excellent and WTF at the same time. Loved some of the answers - THATS A BIG IF and GLOW UP were two of my favs. Then there was a desert I have never heard of, a rococo painter I have never heard of, a pink thing on a cat’s paw I have never heard of, some secretary with two ‘A’s in the name, and a dessert I have never heard of (never having been to Australia). And that crossed the PHONEME which I may have heard of somewhere in the past. On top of all that were the unchecked squares spelling out a game I have played but could not spell, which had ADONI_ in it that seemed like it could have been an ‘s’ at the end. Somehow I knew ELWOOD and KEELEY and still found that the bad somewhat outweighed the good in this puzzle.
My week on SB ran the gamut from not getting to genius once to QB once. Maybe this week will be better. Oh yeah, and UNC beat Dook!
That was a tough one and I got stuck pretty much where you did. Love these recaps of your experience. You're a much more advanced player than me and your look in is a big plus. Thanks!
Agree with Rex on the natick. I only know of PACHINKO because on the excellent novel by Min Jin Lee. Seems like the constructors missed an opportunity to reference the book, especially since the author’s name seems pretty crossword friendly.
I toured Japan in "The Fantasticks" in '89,'90 and '92, six months all together in 30 cities. There were Pachinko Parlors everywhere. Always packed. Imagine 50 or more of those machines with their rattling steel balls, the sound was deafening. They were all open to the street and I would watch from the sidewalk fascinated.
They must be highly addictive because a fellow actor spent all of his free time at the Parlors. We were highly paid and I came home with lots of money, but this poor guy fed those machines to the point that he kept getting advances from the Producer. When the tour ended he owed the Producer. So sad.
I got the theme early and loved the whole idea as I love everything Japanese. Not that it was easy nor that I knew the desert and the initials, but with a little help from "check puzzle" I managed to finish. (I play by my own rules, no google, no dictionary just occasionally remove the wrong letters.) Otherwise I would never finish. After all, I'll be 90 next month and that's my justification.
I, too, loved Min Jin Lee's Pachinko. She spoke at our library in Columbia,SC, and she was a delight. She said that as a new immigrant, she learned to read and write at the Queens Public Library.
Thought the puzzle was extremely tough today—finally solved it but only after a couple of hours. Didn't know toe bean, which has no cross for assistance on the last letter. Got it only after figuring out Pachinko. Fortunately, the Atacama wasn't an issue for me. Spent some time in my youth in La Serena, Chile, which is north of Santiago and relatively close to the Atacama. There was a grizzly exhibit in a local museum consisting of a desiccated but intact corpse displayed in a glass-walled vacuum cube. It had been retrieved from the Atacama decades after the person had died. In the rainless Atacama, there is no form of life whatsoever, including microorganisms that cause decomposition.
I really enjoyed this puzzle although I did have trouble in some spots (not the least of which is not being familiar with Pachinko).
SOAPBOX TIME:
I am surprised by the number of posters who are unfamiliar with ATP. It’s been said that people know more about how their cars and computers function than their own bodies. Not knowing ATP is a perfect example. ATP is not some random, trivial compound among the thousands of others in the cells that make up our bodies. ATP is *the* currency of energy in all of our cells.
Why do you suppose we need food and oxygen to live? Simple: to make ATP. Our cells use the glucose (or fats) and oxygen supplied to them by our bloodstream to make ATP (does the term, the Krebs’ cycle, stir up memories from your high school science classes?)
We’ve all heard of calories. Well, how (and why) are they produced and utilized? Answer: ATP.
The ATP molecule transfers energy to the myriad of other intracellular molecules that are the machinery of the cell, controlling everything (depending on cell type) from cell division, to muscle contraction, antibody production, hormone synthesis, you name it.
Of all the different chemicals that exist within each of us, the most important is ATP. Without it, nothing else works. Heart attacks, strokes: they are the devastating manifestations of what happens when you suddenly prevent a cell from making ATP.
I remember fellow students in college and med school complaining about how difficult biochemistry was. I used to say, "aren’t you interested in how your body works; what makes you, you?" And when they viewed the topic in that light, they invariably became interested, nay, fascinated, in the subject. Even today, many, many decades later, not a one of them would say they don’t know what Is or what its purpose is.
I modestly propose that one get an elementary textbook on human biology. I’m telling you, it’ll be a page turner. Especially the chapter on energy production, the star of which is-you guessed it-ATP!
Rex doesn't know Tracy K. Smith! Something he should rectify at once! For shame. For his amazement and pleasure as well. Enjoyed the puzzle, in a way, but the grid looked ugly and rather menacing to me. Learned about Pachinko and Atacama, so that's all good.
I don't understand it, but I am an outlier today. I thoroughly enjoyed the PACHINKO theme and found the puzzle fun to chew my way through. The southeast was the last to fall, thanks to CARrAce before CARSALE. I knew OSHA but it was being evasive.
There were plenty of people and things I didn’t know but managed to get. And TOEBEAN was one of them, the N finally making sense from the definition. Love that adorable photo of Alfie's paw, though I am more a dog person.
The ATACAMA is very famous as deserts go, so I knew it, though it wasn't on the tip of my tongue. (Butter, butter, butter, butter..) My geography knowledge is about average so I didn't know it was on the PACIFIC. It was nice to learn more about it.
I've seen PACHINKO games in junk shops and walked past a parlor or two in Japan. They are noisy and colorful - you can't miss them. They're on cruise ships too and in many movies set in Japan.
Good: Definitely different. M&A luv's different, so the good trumps the bad & ugly bits. But ...
Bad: Lotsa stuff M&A didn't know, many times crossin each other. Lost precious nanoseconds figurin out the ones that didn't cross, and went down in flames on two of the bad crosses: ATACAMA/ATP & ADONAI/PACHINKO [Wanted PACHENKO, btw]. Also got smoked on my guess of SHALALE/TESTER, but that was kinda semi-dumb, on my part. But them first two Nat-ticks rated a Big UMNO, at our house.
Ugly: "The path", which ended up bein a Big O. Did help a little with the solvequest eventually, tho.
staff weeject pick: ATP. Crossed both ATACAMA [a no-know] and UPSELLS [debut desperation word]. honrable mention to OOO, the start of the Big O.
Have an old friend that once had a Pachinko game stored in his basement. About my only contact with that there form of amusement.
Thanx for gangin up on us, Mr. Stock & Mr. Nediger dudes.
I didn't get ATACAMA,even though I watched a nature show about it recently. I also had TOEBEAd for 44D,and Grid Art is beyond my comprehension even when pointed out to me. I have been in Japan a few dozen times over the years so I have been past pachinko parlors but still can't see it!
Triple DNF today - the fave spot of ATP/ATACAMA (I threw in a hail-Mary L there but wasn't surprised when it was marked wrong.)
The other, double DNF is my fault. I read the clue for 82A and interpreted it as meaning that the letters in the "cups" would be what filled in 82A. So I saw NAME OF THE GAME and threw an N in 5D's cup. Not knowing SHALALA, I thought maybe T__n for "Save it for a rainy day!" would be, um, TuRn, for, I don't know, a board game? Right, stupid. I could have confirmed my original thought about 82A by reading the other letters in the cup and I could have fixed that spot, but no, I didn't.
PACHINKO - one of those coincidences that happen - I haven't thought for years about PACHINKO but earlier this week I saw the word and it reminded me of the time my Dad, who loved gambling games, brought home a PACHINKO game. I spent my entire two-week high school Christmas break playing that stupid game - very addicting, for me anyway.
My local newspaper prints a cryptoquip every day that contains a really painful pun - or at least it's pun-ISH[ment]. They're so easy to solve that I cross out the letter hint and solve it in my head without writing anything down. On Thursday, the quip was:
WELL-KNOWN DRAMATIC ACTOR WHO'S JUST WILD ABOUT JAPANESE PINBALL MACHINES:
AL PACHINKO.
On that note, I'll thank Matthew and Will for a fun puzzle. Like @Lewis, I loved the clue for OBOE, very clever!
Cool theme but way too much PPP for me such that it became frustrating. As many have already commented, Pachinko by Min Jin Lee is an excellent read. Highly recommend.
The theme of this puzzle means absolutely nothing to me. Never heard of Pachinko and couldn't care less about it. Fortunately it's possible to complete the entire puzzle without needing to "get" the theme, but it leaves a bad taste. Random abbreviations such as ATP are just annoying, should be edited out. This was not an enjoyable Sunday puzzle, however much to constructors are admired. At least keep the pop culture American.
We had never heard of Pachinko, but that didn't stop our enjoyment! The "cups" stood out and had us wondering if it was pinball? Beer pong? Plinko!? (No one else seemed to go there except @roomonster). The mystery kept us engaged, and the grid/game was clear enough that even with confusion the long "themers" fell into place and felt solid.
Between the falling ball (Os), funky construction, themers, and cup revealer, there was way more meat on the bone than the typical Sunday. Surprised by the somewhat tepid response here.
Wow, this puzzle is not getting a lot of love, so I’m going to throw some at the constructors in case they are perusing. I thought it was creative and fun to solve. Like @PABLOINNH, I had no problem with ATACAMA (Chile is one of my favorite countries, and I actually wrote a short story in Spanish about a guy who goes into the Atacama to die and then experiences the first rainstorm in 500 years, frustrating his plans). Also like him, I did not know TOE BEAN (though I am happy to learn it, especially with Rex’s photo), and needed the letters of PACHINKO to get it.
I figured out the Os right away from the first stack of three, which sped up the solve even though I had no idea what they represented.
We should all be glad for FOIA (Freedom of Information Act), which is how journalists and activists find out about all kinds of government shenanigans, from the city council to the presidential level. And anyone can file a FOIA request. I highly recommend it if you have any suspicions about your government.
I was a bit peeved with the Natick I encountered when I guessed S for the last letter of ADONAI. This happened before I figured out the gimmick (NAMEOFTHEGAME = Pachinko)which made it solvable and only a quasi-Natick. Not bad. Multi-layered theme with lots of good stuff but a touch too much three-letter flotsam.
Naticked at the same spot as Rex and just had to run the alphabet. No fun. Likewise TOEBEAN, which was TOE-tally unknown to me, a pet owner for most of my life. At least the choices there were pretty much limited to -BEAD (my first guess) or -BEAN.
I guess if you’re a big fan of antique amusements, this puzzle would have given you the old vo-dee-oh-doh-doh. But for me, it was just a big yawn.
PS - Jeff Chen constructed the end-of-the-year NYT Mega Puzzle for 2021. That massive puzzle is a crossword masterpiece. So rewarding for anyone who put in the time to complete it.
To add a little to what jazzmanchgo and Pete said, in common usage, frogs generally have smooth skin and toads have warty skin. But technically, there is no distinction and everything you might call a toad, frog, spadefoot, tree frog, etc. are frogs.
Great memories from today’s puzzle. My first encounter with a PACHINKO machine came at a rather awkward time. My dad had just finished his doctorate at Pitt, and was invited to a “do” at his committee chair’s home on graduation weekend. I was 12, and should have known better, but was raised to ask questions (politely) when I had them.
Dr. B wanted to make sure the offspring of his two candidates had a good time. He was a collector of gambling equipment and taught us to play Roulette and PACHINKO - both pretty easy. My brother and sister (he was 14 and sis 10) as well as three other kids (I don't remember at all because only one of them was old enough to want to hang around with us) were down in their classic 1964 basement rec room, My brother, ever one to “lecture” started talking about illegal gambling and how only criminals had the things we were playing with, and that is why we had to play in the basement. We had a fabulous time and must have been quiet enough that the adults felt that all was well.
And so it was until Mom came down to tell us to put the “toys” away where they belong. The other parents, Dr. And Mrs B came down behind my mom, And Dr. B said something like “Don’t worry, I keep these with the rest of my collection.” I pipe up and asked, Dr B, “Are you a professor now because Pachinko is illegal?” Oh my, Dad could not get me out of there quickly enough! I have never forgotten about when I learned PACHINKO.
And I remember the “discussion” on the way home about behavior in adult company. A day or so later, my mom tried to explain my gigantic faux pas. My dad remained good friends with Dr. B throughout his long career as a special educator
My heart soared as I'M LIKE fell into place hi @LMS. ALVEOLAR not so much. If I'M LIKE asked about linguistics, I refer that person to a guy named Noam. Nice to see ATACAMA, home to some of the highest bad ass observatories in the world - over three miles high and dry as a martini. Are DEVILED eggs supposed to be hot? I've never got that impression despite hot looking red spice sprinkles.
I take a look at the ATACAMA desert on a near daily basis by going to this site: NOAA GOES East full disk view. It's already night there so the cloud pattern isn't as dramatic as it is during the day. The desert stands out because there are almost never clouds over it. There are usually clouds just off the coast and clouds just to the right inland but none over ATACAMA.
I first noticed this while watching for hurricanes. NOAA is a great resource for that. Plus it has an interesting anagram.
I heard PACHINKO machines before I ever saw them. We were exploring one of the districts in Tokyo when we heard a tinkling sound off in the distance that was kind of like parts of Balinese gamelan music. We followed the sound until we came upon a bunch PACHINKO machines. They were open to the street and appeared to be completely mechanical. (This was the mid 80s) The player flipped a steel ball up to the top and then it fell into to an array metal pins and took what looked like a completely random path downward. Each time the ball hit a pin, which it did many times, there was a distinct ringing sound. There were maybe a dozen machines and the overall sound was amazing. That was my first and last PACHINKO experience.
I am stopping by for the first time in SEVERAL YEARS to say I HATED this puzzle! Several years worth of hate!
I spent the day intermittently trying to solve downs-only. Some success, but not enough. Eventually I retrieve my clipping of the acrosses & tape it back into place.
It barely helps. I come up with 7 letters + an unknown (Hebrew Bible not my strength) to read .... how?? Left-to-right? Clockwise? Starting at the "O" at the bottom (where the path leads to)? Who knows. I couldn't even come up with any plausible anagrams.
So I come here to learn the answer and discover that my first margin note "PACHi?NKO" was correct.
I am not the OED, but I do not have a tiny vocabulary either. PACHINKO???
I waited and waited hoping that someone will mention this, but apparently everyone here does agree that "gnu" rhymes with "zoo". Or do you? Once again, rhymes require same last consonants. What we see here is called assonance. At best it is considered being a "weak rhyme". So I conclude: we have a weak clue at best.
speaking of the ATACAMA, 'How the Universe Works' is currently running a 3 hour compilation episode, 'The Cosmic Web'. the last hour is on now, and the Atacama LMA (telescope array) is referenced, with video. it looks a bit like a wind farm, just of radio telescopes. you can get it when it re-runs. science porn of the first order.
I bought two pachinko machines at Sears (Hicksville) in the early '70's. Highly addictive and noisy. I still have them in the basement, though not set up to play. Have not used them in over 30 years.
My original thought was "What a duckbilled platypus of a puzzle this is!" Looked like a bunch of tuning forks. There were circles, and stand-alone squares, and...a royal mess. And, like four different revealers. Plus some opaque cluing, including a few PPP nightmares.
However, I persevered, shooting that ball down the puzzle's throat, and--of course!--missing all the cups. Story of my life. Once I spelled out those orphan letters, though, it sorta came a little more together.
I had no idea about ATP either, but luckily I knew the ATACAMA Desert, though from where I can't recall. Tatum ONEAL for DOD. Birdie.
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I normally enjoy puzzles by either Stock or Nediger and this combo only doubled my pleasure. More challenging and less of a slog than we often get on Sunday. And different, too. I liked it a lot!
ReplyDeleteTough! Lots of WOEs that eventually succumbed to educated guesses but it took a long time. Fortunately ATACAMA rose to the surface of my memory because ATP was one of the WOEs and I would have had an @Rex DNF. Impressive construction, liked it but it was a bumpy ride.
ReplyDelete...and speaking of PACHINKO I highly recommend the book of the same name by Min Jin Lee.
Fantastic book! And the Pachinlo parlors in Japan (ubiquitous in Tokyo) are loud, very smoky and kind of insane. Folks are obsessed, and sit there, check by jowl, for hours and hours day and/or night!
DeleteI made the mistake of starting this mess in the first place. I'll email my address under separate cover.
ReplyDeleteNaticked at the same spot as Rex. Plus never heard of PACHINKO - kept thinking it was a boxer or actor. So I never understood the theme. At all. Hated this one.
ReplyDeleteYup, me too.
DeleteRex I love the personal stories often told by our fellow commenters, and your Pachinko one is pretty solid. Never even seen a game, myself. I'll take your word for it that today's grid has something to do with it. Even not knowing the game, it was still kinda fun.
ReplyDeleteMy troubles were in the SW corner. THE HELP, ALVEOLAR, FOIA, KEELEY were all total unknowns to me. FOIA I realized once I saw it complete, must stand for Freedom of Info Act. But just a big mud bog down there.
I normally dislike names but am surprised that GOPRO was not clued as such.
[Spelling Bee: Fri 0, Sat 3:24 to reach pg, then another 25 min or so to get to QB. 2 quick days in a row!
My last 9 days, starting on Feb 25: 0, 0, 0, -1, 0, 0, -1, 0, 0. Not too bad!]
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ReplyDeleteI’m utterly unfamiliar with how a Pachinko game works, so this one took a minute to suss out. FOLLOW THE BOUNCING BALL reminds me of Shakey’s Pizza and its nifty sing-alongs.
ReplyDeleteLike Rex – I had “hugely” before HIGHLY and “minced” before FINELY. And, yeah, that ATACAMA/ATP cross I just left blank and traced the empty blank heavily in pencil, as is my wont with true Naticks.
“Linzer” before SACHER. Bet we’re legion this morning. Thing is, I’ve actually eaten SACHERTORTE at The Hotel Sacher in Vienna. Man, am I all well-traveled and sophisticated. (I have a new friend here, a lawyer, and she’s talking about including Vienna in an upcoming trip. Says she wants to have coffee in a Viennese coffee shop. I told her it’s so cool that you get a little wrapped chocolate with your coffee, hoping that she recognizes that I’m worldly and smart even though I’m not a lawyer – I couldn’t really tell.)
Never heard the phrase GLOW UP, but I love it.
UPSELLS – why does Spectrum or any other company think you’re in the mood to buy stuff from a business that has kept you on hold for 20 minutes, this after going to battle with that insistent robot who’s hell-bent on making you sort out your problem without speaking to an actual person? Jeez Louise.
Loved, loved, loved I’M LIKE. And the clue! I loved that it shifted tense. I’ll remind everyone that I’M LIKE does more semantic work than I GO because I’M LIKE extends to maybe just what you were thinking but not actually saying:
“Oh. Duke lost? So very sorry for Coach K but thrilled for the Heels. Good game.” But I’M LIKE Good riddance buddy how fun to beat you in Cameron in your final game ever to coach there sayonara baby don’t let the arena door hitcha on the way out.
I have to brag that back when he was a player, I used to speak to Hubert Davis every single day as I was leaving Murphy Hall where my office was to cross over to Dey Hall to teach my classes. We always passed each other, and I would pester him about whatever game was coming up or had just been played. So I guess I’m kind of a big deal.
Lots to love here for a linguist. ALVEOLAR, PHONEME, TRILLED. Think you can’t roll your R’s? If you say butter and concentrate on your tongue action for those two T’s – you’ve just done an initial roll. If you say it really fast like 10 times, you’ll start getting the feel of a TRILLED R. You’re welcome.
Serendipity – Yesterday I was telling Mom a funny story about teaching linguistics at Carolina YAY HEELS. I’m pretty sure I’m repeating myself here, but that has never stopped me before. . . The TA who taught in the same room after me, the same course, always sat in on my class so she’d already be in the room; she was terrified of talking to a class, and this apparently helped her. I was teaching the very difficult concept of PHONEME and how it actually represents a family of allophones – all similar sounds. I told my class that the T’s in top, stop, pot were all different in their articulation. I was winging it and said It’s like there’s this T-ness about them. Marjorie thought this was a swell way to explain it. Unfortunately she chose the P’s in pot, spot, and top (see where this is going?) When she said It's like there’s this P-ness about them she told me it took her a minute to understand why the class erupted.
OK sorry can't resist. I just said "I love the personal stories often told by our fellow commenters", then 8 minutes later Lauren posts a classic.
ReplyDeleteSo: my brother worked in a building supply store. He was discussing something with a colleague when a woman customer who wanted help looked at him, waved her arms and said "Oh, yoo hoo!" So he replied without thinking: "Hey, yoo hoo-er?"
I can’t believe that until today I had never noticed that PHONEME is a dook for PHONE ME. Seems like a good basis for a number in a musical.
ReplyDeleteIf you don’t know a bat from a cat
Well the PHONEME’s the rat
So PHONE ME.
I know that @Nancy could do something clever with this concept, and I hope she does.
I loved “So the my response was…” as the clue for IMLIKE (18D). “I’m like” is such an encompassing descriptive because it can be the lead in to how you responded to something verbally, emotionally, physically or any other way.
I didn’t love this puzzle. The uncrossed hangers that spelled out PACHINKO just rubbed me the wrong way. So did the fact that 17 squares were obviously “o” once you saw it, which I did very early. But, nonetheless, a good collaboration, for which I thank you, Mathew Stock and Will Nediger.
My brother has a little hoarding problem and just loves odd items. One year he bought us a PACHINKO machine for Christmas, so this puzzle was great fun for me. We had it set up in our living room for years and it was a great hit at parties, but man it was loud.
ReplyDeleteMy father was from Vienna and SACHER torte was his favorite dessert. It was one of the first things my Grandma Sophie taught me how to bake. I’ve also had it at the SACHER Hotel (Hi Loren), mine is almost as good, but not quite.
Embarrassing crossword moment, putting in WAZOO instead of KAZOO. @Foodie would remember.
Thanks to everyone yesterday who was kind enough to offer their thoughts on the Wordle statistics bugs. Bottom line, I'm certain of just one thing. Wordle started of as a friendly, fun little diversion that functioned flawlessly, at least on my device. The NYTs took over and turned it into an unending string of annoyances. Thanks NYts, for nothing.
ReplyDelete(The cherry on top? If they paid the app's originator about $1.5 million, as I believe was reported, they robbed him blind. He apparently had no idea what all those eyeballs, seven days a week, could be leveraged into.)
ReplyDeleteWe used to play Parcheesi at home whenever we had a large enough group. One of my aunts pronounced it "Pacheesi," so when I saw PACH----, that's what I put in. D'oh! That sorted itself out eventually, but I joined @Rex, @LMS and others in Natick, moving in lock, stock and ATP.
Was also clueless about ATACAMA/ATP, so I broke down and looked up the Wikipedia article on “List of Deserts.” The list is grouped by continent rather than alphabetically, but a search on “acama” turns up the answer quickly. Then I looked up ATP to find out wtf *that* is.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, north was fairly fast, SW not quite so, and SE took quite a while (neither minced nor finely were on my radar, and I rather absentmindedly wrote car race for CAR SALE and when I realized mine wasn’t working, doubted the car part first). Never heard of PACHINKO, although I had played with a similar toy as a child — I think the first time was a version my grandfather brought with him from Czechoslovakia, so the link to Japan was also new.
So I continue to console myself that I’m learning things from my time spent.
DNF/DNC, you know where. The opening paragraph of that Wikilink for ATP mentions AmP and AdP. JFC. I’m sure somebody will be around to explain how important ATP is and how the clue could only be for ATP and we’re all ignorant philistines for not know it and “how could dr. rex not know this,”… to which I say, “JFC that was bad.”
ReplyDeleteAs for PACHINKO, fairly or not it made the puzzle skew dead to me. Maybe there are lots and lots of people still playing PACHINKO, but to me it is something old people play, and not old like I am now but old when I was 7 meaning they’re all dead now. I just looked it up and it is a huge thing in Japan, but to me it is more like the relic Rex describes, just something that you’d find in some random old person’s house as a kid. Anyways… This struck me as incredibly dated. I wondered briefly if there was a PACHINKO fad amongst the youngs that I was missing, but it looks like it is just a huge gambling game in Japan.
Highlight of the puzzle was the MOWER clue. Steel blades and blades of grass. Nice.
@Brian A in SLC - I will happily chastise the NYT for many things, but the Wordle transition is not one of them. For me and the vast majority of people the transition was seamless. Even the most common problem, the loss of individuals’ stats, is minor and mostly a result of things well beyond the NYT’s control. As for monetizing Wordle, it’s early still but my Wordle page is the same except for the url at the top.
Speaking of Wordle - first Eagle in ages and because of the vowels I eliminated with my first guess it felt earned.
Wordle 260 2/6
🟩⬛⬛🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
ATP - adenosine triphosphate
DeleteADP diPhosphate. AMP - monophosohate
That third P in ATP is used for energy needs, e.g. muscle contraction.
Used to be taught in college only but now in elementary school.
Flew through this one, very easy but fun!
ReplyDeleteSome post-solve observations:
ReplyDelete• I loved seeing the face in the grid, complete with a defined chin, eyebrows, and bindi.
• Will Nediger, who designed the grid (according to the constructor notes), has serious constructing chops. There were so many theme elements – the “cups”, ball path, and the four long answers, and he managed to space them all apart.
• The answer OBOE had appeared in the NYT 780 times before today, but never with a clue like [It’s blown in the winds]. Props for creativity.
• I did read “Pachinko” (Min Jin Lee, 2017) and it was one of my favorite reads of the year. Highly recommended.
• I guessed in two spots – the last letters of ATACAMA and TOEBEAN, and, to my surprise, I guessed right in both cases.
• My favorite clue/answer: [“So then my response was…”] for I’M LIKE.
• Aside from the face in the grid, I saw those two monkey wrenches entering from the sides. Immediately what popped into my head was “Throwing a monkey wrench into the fire”, and when I looked this phrase up, I learned that a mashing of idioms is called a malaphor. That’s a great discovery that I will remember.
The solve overall felt refreshing and involving, and isn’t that THE NAME OF THE GAME? Thank you, gentlemen!
Thx Matthew & Will, for this 'tricky' Sun. puz! :)
ReplyDeleteMed-hard.
Pretty slow going; I almost got it right. Had UH NO / NAOHI for the dnf. Guessed the 'I' in TIEPOLO, but couldn't see NAOMI; NAOHI seemed plausible. I'd try for @Rex's prize, but refuse to read any books in dead tree mode.
Also had a lucky guess at ATP / ATACAMA, altho somehow the 'T' seemed to resonate. I think we had it last year, or maybe it was in a non-MYT xword not too long ago.??
Didn't know PACHINKO cups, but do now. Thx @Rex.
Lots of other unknowns, but fair crosses came to the rescue. :)
Enjoyed the workout; always grateful for the mental effort required of Sun. NYT xwords. 🤔
@okanaganer 👍 for a bunch of recent 0's
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yd pg: 3:10 / W: 5*
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Same Natick for me!
ReplyDeleteNever F***ing heard of PACHINKO. This was the epitome of a Sunday Slog.
ReplyDeleteWhen I approached a publisher, Along with other stats the number of reviews on my book mattered. I used usbookreviews.com to get 100+ reviews. This immensely helped me get a traditional publisher. Now I am also looking to sell movie rights for my novel to a medium sized studio in Hollywood.
ReplyDeleteInteresting how one man's (or woman's) Natick is another's gimme. Atacama I knew from various astronomy radio shows... It's the driest, most cloudless place on earth; perfect for telescopes.
ReplyDeleteI was a bio major so ATP (part of the notorious Kreb's cycle) was obvious.
I never quite understood the chemistry of the Kreb's cycle though I did know it was the mechanism by which energy is released, metabolically speaking.
It produced the energy that allowed me to move my fingers, playing the guitar. I had the option of learning Alice's Restaurant off the record or studying for an ecology mid-term. Suffice it to say, 50 years later, I can still play Alice's Restaurant.
I can appreciate the chops here but it didn’t connect well. Attractive gridwork and the theme works I guess - not sure the circles should have been used. Cluing was disjoint - odd trivia and some decent wordplay. Like @Z the one that stood out for me was MOWER. The emotion of DISGORGE is neat and thankfully I knew ATACAMA.
ReplyDeleteRough name day for me - swing and miss on HAALAND, NAOMI, TRACY and others. My mom’s DEVILED eggs were not hot.
OCTOBER Project on a Sunday morning
The solve did keep me interested at least.
Too many things I'm not familiar with in this grid including a double Natick (ATACAMA/ATP and PACHINKO/TOEBEAN). Toss in ALVEOLAR over FOIA, and I finally resorted to "Reveal Puzzle."
ReplyDeleteImpressive feat of construction and reminder of all the things Tom T "don't know."
I'm taking some perverse pleasure in knowing ATACAMA, but that doesn't mean I avoided a DNF. Do I know the Lord in Hebrew Bible? Apparently not. ADONAh looked fine, and I gave up trying to figure out what the name of that game i could see in my head (and the grid) was. IMLIKE "screw it, will find out later". Completely annoyed I can't even blame a Natick - done in by an unchecked box. Awful. Enjoyed some of the cluing and some of the answers. IROC, ASSISI, OKAPI, and CASTE all handled the "remind you of things in your life you're glad you remember" role. Just really wanted the jingle after finishing this beast and couldn't get it.
ReplyDeleteATP probably the most important compound in cellular biology. The common unit of energy to all life on Earth. Just read a NewYorker article about breakthroughs in the understanding of cells, and I don’t think the author mentioned this or anything about energy, ions, enzymes or catalysts.
ReplyDeleteFOIA, Keeley and Cee not my favorites, had a tougher time than usual with some of the short clues but different and creative as Rex says.
I did not know ATACAMA but I do know adenosine triphosphate or ATP.
ReplyDeleteIf I had known it, I would have appreciated the placement of ATACAMA next to the PACIFIC. I only got that from seeing Rex's map.
Wordle 260 3/6
ReplyDelete⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛🟨⬛⬛🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Not quite @Z's feat, but feeling equally earned, as opposed to lucky, I guess.
This week on CSI: Natick –
ReplyDeleteThe CSI's determine that a Chilean desert teamed up with an energy cell in a successful attempt to prevent Rex's crossword finish.
I became so disinterested in this thing that I just abandoned it halfway through. I got the left side done and some of the right, but since I never heard of Pachinko I had no concept of what was being represented by the grid. "Why is there a string of O's winding down the middle?" I asked myself. "You're asking me?" myself responded. I was disappointed, I was hoping for something more fun after yesterday's blast.
Now I must take my leave, for I've pledged my TROTH to Lady Jane. We are going SNOGging this afternoon.
Last night was the first time we watched Ted Lasso, so this was "witchy" to see a clue related to the series (which we did not get). We're looking forward to watching the entire series.
ReplyDeleteI was impressed by this feat of construction but must say was underwhelmed by such answers as UMNO, IMLIKE, OHLOOK, and YEAHOK. And never heard of a TOEBEAN, so thanks for the photo of the cat's paw, Rex.
I don’t see how you can review this puzzle without mentioning Min Jin Lee’s excellent book, PACHINKO, a NYT bestseller and notable book in 2017
ReplyDeletehttps://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/pachinko-min-jin-lee/1123889620
Slick theme, which I’m sure was no easy task to pull of. For me, the collateral damage to the grid and fill is not worth it. By the time all is said and done, you have for example a section like the mid-west with ISOPOD, SACHER, PHONEME and TOE BEAN. I’m sorry, but those are barely even real words. That whole section is a linguistic pile of junk.
ReplyDeleteThings don’t improve much elsewhere, as the grid has to accommodate the likes of a HAALAND, ALVEOLAR, SHALALA ,ATACAMA , KEELEY and even a SNOG. Sorry, but really diminished joy when the objective of the puzzle distills down to parsing together every single cross to come up with something that looks like a plausible quasi-word; then rinse and repeat. Just awful.
The Times crew really needs to rethink the whole philosophy behind embracing stuff like GLOW OLD. They do it all the time, and it is soooooooo unnecessary.
Just awful in every way. Disjointed, nonsensical theme; ridiculous proper names; non-word answers; gobs of “conversational” entries; joyless cluing. Won't belabor it, I'll just move on.
ReplyDeletePS ATACAMA and ATP both gimmes.
Enjoyed Octavia Spencer in 'The Help', 'Hidden Figures', and 'Truth Be Told'. (now watching her in the 'The Shape of Water' on Disney+
ReplyDeleteLoved the clue for RODS (They cast lots).
Learned PHONEME from Spelling Bee.
Excellent OCTOBER movie: 'October Sky'.
Got NAOMI Klein's 'This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate' audiobook on hold.
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td g: 54:25 (way over time limit; didn't get to pangrammatic) / W: 3*
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
INLIKE is not English. Kramer mentions a pachinko machine in one episode , don't remember which, and there is a game show on NBC right now that features essentially a giant pachinko machine. Still common today in smaller versions as kid toys. Not obscure at all.
ReplyDeleteExcept for IMLIKE which caused some delays in NE, a quick and entertaining solve for me.
TOEBEAd? TOEBEAr? Without a cross, pure guesswork.
ReplyDeleteVery, very clever puzzle. I liked it alot even though I knew nothing about Pachinko. I did read up on it and it sounds like an interesting game. Love crosswords that I learn something by doing them.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBest thing about this slog was being reminded of the superb book Pachinko.
ReplyDeleteMore proof that, "if you know it, it's easy, if you don't, it's impossible". Case in point for me, ATACAMA, which I knew from teaching some South American geography, and also remembered ss the driest place on earth, vs. TOEBEAN, which was a total WTF. Also the last letter was uncrossed, so no help there. PACHINKO to the rescue, as it now head to be an N, darn it. I was secretly hoping for an R and a TOEBEAR.
ReplyDeleteKnew PHONEME and ALVEOLAR from teaching a language, and I think my TRILLING ability was why I got interested in Spanish in the first place. Agree with LMS's suggestion for the "butter" trick, I find that "ladder" works much the same way.
If you solved top down and saw the string of O's it was fun to fill them all in after you had a few, sort of like being the ball failing in the game.
Most of the long answers were pretty obvious. Very helpful.
Not often we get a stunt puzzle on a Sunday and I haven't been able to type "stunt puzzle" for a while, so yay for that.
Nice enough Sunday, MS and WN. Mostly Solid and With Negligible dreck, so thanks for all the fun.
I normally like all sorts of games, but this one passed me by. So, with the unchecked squares meaning nothing to me, I became plagued by the PPP. Oddly, I am currently watching archived copies of the PBS Nature shows, which many years ago featured the desert a a few of them. Did that make the solve any more pleasant for me? Not really. I certainly understand why this puzzle was accepted and published. Sadly, it is just not a puzzle for me.
ReplyDeleteIn general, games that involve only luck and not skill do not interest me. Arcade games that limit how long you can play a game no matter what you do, or games that require impossibly fast reflexes, are simply not for me. Like this puzzle was not for me, for different reasons.
Refreshingly clever Sunday. Moved along fairly quickly with no slogging. TOEBEAN is a quirky inclusion, much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteWell, because I kind of knew ATP, I didn't natick there, but fully sympathize with those who did. My natick came with Pachinko/Adonai because I was not sure of the spelling of either, and "misremembered" (sorry GWB) Pachinko as Pachenko. This is the problem with this kind of construction... it's clever as all getout in theory, but in practice only works if the tbeme answer is in everyone's wheelhouse, and as the comments heretofore indicate, PACHINKO definitely is not, at least not here in the West.
ReplyDeleteMany marvel at the beauty of Paris, but I found Vienna more captivating, so 50D brought back some good memories at a time when recent ones aren't so great.
ReplyDeleteI guess PACHINKO machines were somewhat popular in the 60s and 70s in the US, at least in some circles? My best friend's mother had one in their game room. I had never seen one before, and haven't seen one since. It seemed like a cross between a pinball machine (but vertical) and a slot machine.
I’m not going to Google which would no doubt prove my theory wrong but I’m thinking that GLOW UP is a phrase coined by the constructors as a nod to the Pachinko theme.
ReplyDeleteWell, it's over. That's about all I can say. Failed in the atp area and could not care less. Some nice moments but the cutesy cluing really grated.
ReplyDeleteSo we had one really good puzzle this week and the rest was garbage.
@LMS, re. " Coach K ", with you all the way. Cried about every call that didn't go his way, and was a master at teaching kids how to "flop" and get the charge call.
Was it just me who'd never heard of this game? I went and looked it up. Turns out that there's only one PACHINKO parlor in the entire United States. The game is big in Japan, so maybe that's where this puzzle should have been published???
ReplyDeleteAll that work to build a complicated grid that will be completely meaningless to the preponderance of NYTXW solvers? I just don't get it.
Congrats to my sometimes collaborator Will N. for pulling off what was probably a very challenging construction task. But you'd better believe that it's a task that I would never in a million years have thrown at you.
I recommend you read the excellent (and not at all obscure) book called Pachinko to learn more.
DeleteA fine feat of construction, but one where it feels to clever by half. Architecturally impressive but a lot of slog by fill to get there. The gimmick doesn’t pay off in enjoyment.
ReplyDeleteHey All !
ReplyDeleteMust've watched too much "The Price Is Right" growing up, because I could only think of PLINKO. What is this PACHINKO you're telling me about? I said. Har.
Real funky grid, replicating a PACHINKO board. Constructors did a helluva job on it. Did end up with a massive Blockers count, though. 92! Wow. Normal max is about 76-78. Yet there's still lots of open space.
Had 5 wrong letters in, leading to my DNF. Finished up in that tough SW corner, but amazingly got everything correct there. ALVEOLAR wha? FOIA who? Had to Goog for KEELEY just to finish that area. One other Goog for SACHER, as big unknown and stuck in that section also. DNF stuff: VIdA/dOEBEAr (dOEBEAr, TOEBEAN, whatevs), AlACAMA/AlP (agree with Rex on Natick! alert), HAALANi/DODiER (did flirt with the correct D at first), SWaNG/OPa.
So a cool construction feat, neat visual, but some tough entries. First thought was puz had to do with football, with the "cups" resembling field goal posts. SWING and a miss (to mix sports metaphors).
yd -0!
Six F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Defender
ReplyDeleteI have never heard of pachinko and to make the theme about something that obscure left me out, but I did know of the Atacama which was noteworhy to me because I had read, surprisingly, that it was the driest place on earth! I expected a more famous desert for that claim.
I think this is the second time we've had ADONAI in the crossword, and both times I've felt trepidation entering the name of God that is not to be uttered except in prayer.
ReplyDelete:-) I was raised in a crazy right-wing church and I hate it when ASS (I'm like, the donkey?) is an answer because I think I am going to (HECK) for filling in curse words. I think we can forgive our sacrilegious ways if we remember how many people are praying while filling out the NYTXW.
Delete@leahk...Agree 100 percent. Find another answer.
DeleteI encountered the exact same Natick as Rex as my last answer - it was a pure guessing game. I found the puzzle thoroughly unenjoyable - the gimmick was way too finicky, clues were way to bland. A boring slog.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I always wanted to learn how to construct crossword puzzles. It seems really hard but fascinating. Maybe one day I'll learn. And I don't construct crossword puzzles but I do construct other types of puzzles, and I always am interested in seeing how the solver's reactions line up with my hopes for their experience. I appreciate what I image as the "hey, let's make a puzzle that looks like a Pachinko game!" moment for the constructors, and the cleverness and effort it took to put it together. But for me, the actual solving of the puzzle was confusing and joyless. I couldn't find a unifying theme - politics? (couple political references) karaoke? and by the time I found it, the actual theme did not help with the solve and there was nary an "Aha!" in sight. Sorry; not for me.
ReplyDeleteThere goes my streak. I had to stop it before I started wishing bad things to whoever created this mess. Been playing for years and can’t remember disliking a puzzle so much. Zero enjoyment…. Aaaah…. That felt good….
ReplyDelete@OFL:
ReplyDeleteI was sad to finish things off, in the NE corner, with an absolute textbook Natick. I couldn't have been Naticked any harder if I'd tried. No idea. I just couldn't remember the name of the desert in question
Another case of the 'educated' Fearless Leader should have taken one or two hard science (in the opposite to Social) courses. Or seen a recent Bond movie (don't recall the title...). Or watch Science Channel. And so on.
I knew being a bio major would help me someday…
ReplyDeleteDefender,
ReplyDeleteBeat me to driest place on Earth comment. For that reason, it’s always been, or since I’ve been trivia, a common name to me.
ATP and ADP are high school biology tent poles. With DNA, ATP is most important molecule in basic bio.
Every time o See that insipid commercial for the alarm company ADP, I roll my eyes. Apparently, I’m the outlier here.
As for OFL, he’s not a dr., he’s a PhD. Big difference. But more important, I feel terribly sorry for him. His memory of pachinko is of his dad sniffing around a woman, not his wife or Rex’s mother with him in tow. That’s grim. I mean, who cats around with his son ( and possibly daughter) in the next room? Set aside, that Rex’s dad is violating his marriage vows, it’s creepy to expose your children to your extramarital affairs.
For the definitive pachinko scene in film, watch Lost in Translation, there’s a marvelous scene of a peripatetic tic Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson, ahem, pin balling through a pachinko parlor.
Joe D., note the sound work , especially the auditory segue from the parlor to the street. As god as it gets.
Challenging and fun to figure out. Talk about a lot going on! Would that I had understood the pin-ball-like nature of PACHINKO - it would have reflected what was for me rather dizzying solve, with sudden shifts (karaoke to elections?) triggering internal "Tilt" signs. I wasn't sure how it all fit together, but the ride was sure enjoyable - also the unusual grid design and the satisfyingly solid theme phrases.
ReplyDeleteRe: ATACAMA - I had the benefit of a 7th grade teacher who absolutely pounded geography into us. Today I needed the desert to remind me of ATP.
On the new-to-me front...Fun to learn TOE BEAn; surprise at the 2As in HAALAND and at finding out that PACHINKO is not a board game.
TOEBEAd makes at least as much sense as TOEBEAn to those of us without pets. REALLY awful to have that hanging there without the possibility of getting it via the cross (as I did with ATP, as ATACAMA is a gimme).
ReplyDeleteMy feelings about this puzzle were not positive to begin with, but took a nosedive with this gimmickry. Do better.
@9:57
ReplyDeleteRacist PHONEMEr!! :)
I got stuck in the same area as you. My mistake was with Atacama. I thought it was a subdivision in Natick. I don’t mind a nice challenge, but this area had two obscure references crossing.
ReplyDeleteNever heard of PACHINKO or TOEBEAN, but an N seemed like the best guess for the common letter.
ReplyDeleteNever heard of ATP, but knew ATACAMA. It's a quite unique place. Less rainfall than the Sahara, if I remember correctly.
Villager
This puzzle made me feel like a GOOBER in the ATACAMA with a PACHINKO machine and no BOUNCING BALL.
ReplyDeleteUM, NO.
For those of you following your religious conviction to never Google anything related to a puzzle (why?), this comment isn't for you, but for those of you with a sense of humor and Google Maps, you might want to read the one-star reviews of the Atacama desert. Pretty hilarious.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was about 7 years old my family lived in a Navy Housing Project in San Pedro. Everyone I knew had at least one pachinko machine, we had two. I still have one of them. It used to have the price sticker on it. I don't remember the exact price but it was well under $5.
ReplyDeleteSo that along with my being a science nerd put this puzzle in my wheelhouse.
Oh, also wasted huge amounts of time insisting on yahweh before realizing that ADONAI was also 6 letters.
ReplyDeleteVillager
Both excellent and WTF at the same time. Loved some of the answers - THATS A BIG IF and GLOW UP were two of my favs. Then there was a desert I have never heard of, a rococo painter I have never heard of, a pink thing on a cat’s paw I have never heard of, some secretary with two ‘A’s in the name, and a dessert I have never heard of (never having been to Australia). And that crossed the PHONEME which I may have heard of somewhere in the past. On top of all that were the unchecked squares spelling out a game I have played but could not spell, which had ADONI_ in it that seemed like it could have been an ‘s’ at the end. Somehow I knew ELWOOD and KEELEY and still found that the bad somewhat outweighed the good in this puzzle.
ReplyDeleteMy week on SB ran the gamut from not getting to genius once to QB once. Maybe this week will be better. Oh yeah, and UNC beat Dook!
That was a tough one and I got stuck pretty much where you did.
ReplyDeleteLove these recaps of your experience. You're a much more advanced player than me and your look in is a big plus.
Thanks!
Agree with Rex on the natick. I only know of PACHINKO because on the excellent novel by Min Jin Lee. Seems like the constructors missed an opportunity to reference the book, especially since the author’s name seems pretty crossword friendly.
ReplyDelete@11:30
ReplyDeleteThey (whoever they are) have built uber astronomical sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atacama_Desert#Astronomical_observatories.
I toured Japan in "The Fantasticks" in '89,'90 and '92, six months all together in 30 cities. There were Pachinko Parlors everywhere. Always packed. Imagine 50 or more of those machines with their rattling steel balls, the sound was deafening. They were all open to the street and I would watch from the sidewalk fascinated.
ReplyDeleteThey must be highly addictive because a fellow actor spent all of his free time at the Parlors. We were highly paid and I came home with lots of money, but this poor guy fed those machines to the point that he kept getting advances from the Producer. When the tour ended he owed the Producer. So sad.
I got the theme early and loved the whole idea as I love everything Japanese. Not that it was easy nor that I knew the desert and the initials, but with a little help from "check puzzle" I managed to finish. (I play by my own rules, no google, no dictionary just occasionally remove the wrong letters.) Otherwise I would never finish. After all, I'll be 90 next month and that's my justification.
I, too, loved Min Jin Lee's Pachinko. She spoke at our library in Columbia,SC, and she was a delight. She said that as a new immigrant, she learned to read and write at the Queens Public Library.
ReplyDeleteHer book introduced me to pachinko.
Thought the puzzle was extremely tough today—finally solved it but only after a couple of hours. Didn't know toe bean, which has no cross for assistance on the last letter. Got it only after figuring out Pachinko. Fortunately, the Atacama wasn't an issue for me. Spent some time in my youth in La Serena, Chile, which is north of Santiago and relatively close to the Atacama. There was a grizzly exhibit in a local museum consisting of a desiccated but intact corpse displayed in a glass-walled vacuum cube. It had been retrieved from the Atacama decades after the person had died. In the rainless Atacama, there is no form of life whatsoever, including microorganisms that cause decomposition.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this puzzle although I did have trouble in some spots (not the least of which is not being familiar with Pachinko).
ReplyDeleteSOAPBOX TIME:
I am surprised by the number of posters who are unfamiliar with ATP. It’s been said that people know more about how their cars and computers function than their own bodies. Not knowing ATP is a perfect example. ATP is not some random, trivial compound among the thousands of others in the cells that make up our bodies. ATP is *the* currency of energy in all of our cells.
Why do you suppose we need food and oxygen to live? Simple: to make ATP. Our cells use the glucose (or fats) and oxygen supplied to them by our bloodstream to make ATP (does the term, the Krebs’ cycle, stir up memories from your high school science classes?)
We’ve all heard of calories. Well, how (and why) are they produced and utilized? Answer: ATP.
The ATP molecule transfers energy to the myriad of other intracellular molecules that are the machinery of the cell, controlling everything (depending on cell type) from cell division, to muscle contraction, antibody production, hormone synthesis, you name it.
Of all the different chemicals that exist within each of us, the most important is ATP. Without it, nothing else works. Heart attacks, strokes: they are the devastating manifestations of what happens when you suddenly prevent a cell from making ATP.
I remember fellow students in college and med school complaining about how difficult biochemistry was. I used to say, "aren’t you interested in how your body works; what makes you, you?" And when they viewed the topic in that light, they invariably became interested, nay, fascinated, in the subject. Even today, many, many decades later, not a one of them would say they don’t know what Is or what its purpose is.
I modestly propose that one get an elementary textbook on human biology. I’m telling you, it’ll be a page turner. Especially the chapter on energy production, the star of which is-you guessed it-ATP!
Rex doesn't know Tracy K. Smith! Something he should rectify at once! For shame. For his amazement and pleasure as well.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed the puzzle, in a way, but the grid looked ugly and rather menacing to me. Learned about Pachinko and Atacama, so that's all good.
Got Lee's 'PACHINKO' audiobook on hold; I'm #62 in line. lol
ReplyDelete@RooMonster 👍 for 0 yd
@Trey 👍 for your QB
___
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
okanaganer, your yoo hoo story only works in Canada. :)
ReplyDeleteVillager
I don't understand it, but I am an outlier today. I thoroughly enjoyed the PACHINKO theme and found the puzzle fun to chew my way through. The southeast was the last to fall, thanks to CARrAce before CARSALE. I knew OSHA but it was being evasive.
ReplyDeleteThere were plenty of people and things I didn’t know but managed to get. And TOEBEAN was one of them, the N finally making sense from the definition. Love that adorable photo of Alfie's paw, though I am more a dog person.
The ATACAMA is very famous as deserts go, so I knew it, though it wasn't on the tip of my tongue. (Butter, butter, butter, butter..) My geography knowledge is about average so I didn't know it was on the PACIFIC. It was nice to learn more about it.
I've seen PACHINKO games in junk shops and walked past a parlor or two in Japan. They are noisy and colorful - you can't miss them. They're on cruise ships too and in many movies set in Japan.
Good, bad, and ugly SunPuz.
ReplyDeleteGood: Definitely different. M&A luv's different, so the good trumps the bad & ugly bits. But ...
Bad: Lotsa stuff M&A didn't know, many times crossin each other. Lost precious nanoseconds figurin out the ones that didn't cross, and went down in flames on two of the bad crosses: ATACAMA/ATP & ADONAI/PACHINKO [Wanted PACHENKO, btw]. Also got smoked on my guess of SHALALE/TESTER, but that was kinda semi-dumb, on my part. But them first two Nat-ticks rated a Big UMNO, at our house.
Ugly: "The path", which ended up bein a Big O. Did help a little with the solvequest eventually, tho.
staff weeject pick: ATP. Crossed both ATACAMA [a no-know] and UPSELLS [debut desperation word].
honrable mention to OOO, the start of the Big O.
Have an old friend that once had a Pachinko game stored in his basement. About my only contact with that there form of amusement.
Thanx for gangin up on us, Mr. Stock & Mr. Nediger dudes.
Masked & Anonym8Us
**gruntz**
I didn't get ATACAMA,even though I watched a nature show about it recently. I also had TOEBEAd for 44D,and Grid Art is beyond my comprehension even when pointed out to me. I have been in Japan a few dozen times over the years so I have been past pachinko parlors but still can't see it!
ReplyDeleteTriple DNF today - the fave spot of ATP/ATACAMA (I threw in a hail-Mary L there but wasn't surprised when it was marked wrong.)
ReplyDeleteThe other, double DNF is my fault. I read the clue for 82A and interpreted it as meaning that the letters in the "cups" would be what filled in 82A. So I saw NAME OF THE GAME and threw an N in 5D's cup. Not knowing SHALALA, I thought maybe T__n for "Save it for a rainy day!" would be, um, TuRn, for, I don't know, a board game? Right, stupid. I could have confirmed my original thought about 82A by reading the other letters in the cup and I could have fixed that spot, but no, I didn't.
PACHINKO - one of those coincidences that happen - I haven't thought for years about PACHINKO but earlier this week I saw the word and it reminded me of the time my Dad, who loved gambling games, brought home a PACHINKO game. I spent my entire two-week high school Christmas break playing that stupid game - very addicting, for me anyway.
My local newspaper prints a cryptoquip every day that contains a really painful pun - or at least it's pun-ISH[ment]. They're so easy to solve that I cross out the letter hint and solve it in my head without writing anything down. On Thursday, the quip was:
WELL-KNOWN DRAMATIC ACTOR WHO'S JUST WILD ABOUT JAPANESE PINBALL MACHINES:
AL PACHINKO.
On that note, I'll thank Matthew and Will for a fun puzzle. Like @Lewis, I loved the clue for OBOE, very clever!
RE: 47-across -- No, no, and a thousand times NO!!! A toad has a WART, not a frog! That one is just flat-out wrong.
ReplyDelete@jazzmanchgo - Sorry, all toads are frogs.
ReplyDeleteCool theme but way too much PPP for me such that it became frustrating. As many have already commented, Pachinko by Min Jin Lee is an excellent read. Highly recommend.
ReplyDeleteThe theme of this puzzle means absolutely nothing to me. Never heard of Pachinko and couldn't care less about it. Fortunately it's possible to complete the entire puzzle without needing to "get" the theme, but it leaves a bad taste. Random abbreviations such as ATP are just annoying, should be edited out. This was not an enjoyable Sunday puzzle, however much to constructors are admired. At least keep the pop culture American.
ReplyDeleteVery familiar with pachinko machines and that NW natick!
ReplyDeletemeh gimmick meh 🧩
😏🦖🦖🦖😏
We had never heard of Pachinko, but that didn't stop our enjoyment! The "cups" stood out and had us wondering if it was pinball? Beer pong? Plinko!? (No one else seemed to go there except @roomonster). The mystery kept us engaged, and the grid/game was clear enough that even with confusion the long "themers" fell into place and felt solid.
ReplyDeleteBetween the falling ball (Os), funky construction, themers, and cup revealer, there was way more meat on the bone than the typical Sunday. Surprised by the somewhat tepid response here.
Great work MS+WN!
Wow, this puzzle is not getting a lot of love, so I’m going to throw some at the constructors in case they are perusing. I thought it was creative and fun to solve. Like @PABLOINNH, I had no problem with ATACAMA (Chile is one of my favorite countries, and I actually wrote a short story in Spanish about a guy who goes into the Atacama to die and then experiences the first rainstorm in 500 years, frustrating his plans). Also like him, I did not know TOE BEAN (though I am happy to learn it, especially with Rex’s photo), and needed the letters of PACHINKO to get it.
ReplyDeleteI figured out the Os right away from the first stack of three, which sped up the solve even though I had no idea what they represented.
We should all be glad for FOIA (Freedom of Information Act), which is how journalists and activists find out about all kinds of government shenanigans, from the city council to the presidential level. And anyone can file a FOIA request. I highly recommend it if you have any suspicions about your government.
I was a bit peeved with the Natick I encountered when I guessed S for the last letter of ADONAI. This happened before I figured out the gimmick (NAMEOFTHEGAME = Pachinko)which made it solvable and only a quasi-Natick. Not bad. Multi-layered theme with lots of good stuff but a touch too much three-letter flotsam.
ReplyDeleteNaticked at the same spot as Rex and just had to run the alphabet. No fun. Likewise TOEBEAN, which was TOE-tally unknown to me, a pet owner for most of my life. At least the choices there were pretty much limited to -BEAD (my first guess) or -BEAN.
ReplyDeleteI guess if you’re a big fan of antique amusements, this puzzle would have given you the old vo-dee-oh-doh-doh. But for me, it was just a big yawn.
PS - Jeff Chen constructed the end-of-the-year NYT Mega Puzzle for 2021. That massive puzzle is a crossword masterpiece. So rewarding for anyone who put in the time to complete it.
ReplyDeleteTo add a little to what jazzmanchgo and Pete said, in common usage, frogs generally have smooth skin and toads have warty skin. But technically, there is no distinction and everything you might call a toad, frog, spadefoot, tree frog, etc. are frogs.
ReplyDelete@fogman Is that 2021 Mega available in digital format somewhere, maybe the NYT website?
ReplyDeleteMy dnf was TOEBEAN for which I thank Rex. I had bead as a pure guess. Cute pic.
ReplyDelete@RooMonster :) for 0 yd.
@jazzmanchgo:
ReplyDeleteaccording to the innterTubes, toads don't either. https://www.clevelandzoosociety.org/z/2021/03/22/truth-or-tail-toads-can-give-you-warts
Had tankers in lieu of tandems. So couldn't finish
ReplyDeleteGreat memories from today’s puzzle. My first encounter with a PACHINKO machine came at a rather awkward time. My dad had just finished his doctorate at Pitt, and was invited to a “do” at his committee chair’s home on graduation weekend. I was 12, and should have known better, but was raised to ask questions (politely) when I had them.
ReplyDeleteDr. B wanted to make sure the offspring of his two candidates had a good time. He was a collector of gambling equipment and taught us to play Roulette and PACHINKO - both pretty easy. My brother and sister (he was 14 and sis 10) as well as three other kids (I don't remember at all because only one of them was old enough to want to hang around with us) were down in their classic 1964 basement rec room, My brother, ever one to “lecture” started talking about illegal gambling and how only criminals had the things we were playing with, and that is why we had to play in the basement. We had a fabulous time and must have been quiet enough that the adults felt that all was well.
And so it was until Mom came down to tell us to put the “toys” away where they belong. The other parents, Dr. And Mrs B came down behind my mom,
And Dr. B said something like “Don’t worry, I keep these with the rest of my collection.” I pipe up and asked, Dr B, “Are you a professor now because Pachinko is illegal?” Oh my, Dad could not get me out of there quickly enough! I have never forgotten about when I learned PACHINKO.
And I remember the “discussion” on the way home about behavior in adult company. A day or so later, my mom tried to explain my gigantic faux pas. My dad remained good friends with Dr. B throughout his long career as a special educator
My thoughts:
ReplyDeleteVery tough and relatively engaging for a Sunday. My time was more than twice my average for a Sunday.
If I know it and you don't, I'm smart and you are dumb. If you (and the puzzle maker) know it and I don't, it's obscure and unfair!
ReplyDeleteMy heart soared as I'M LIKE fell into place hi @LMS. ALVEOLAR not so much. If I'M LIKE asked about linguistics, I refer that person to a guy named Noam.
ReplyDeleteNice to see ATACAMA, home to some of the highest bad ass observatories in the world - over three miles high and dry as a martini.
Are DEVILED eggs supposed to be hot? I've never got that impression despite hot looking red spice sprinkles.
Big Steve,
ReplyDeleteNot quite right. I thin Rex’s take is actually, if I don’t like it, it’s toxic or offensive or misogynistic. Likely al, three.
I take a look at the ATACAMA desert on a near daily basis by going to this site: NOAA GOES East full disk view. It's already night there so the cloud pattern isn't as dramatic as it is during the day. The desert stands out because there are almost never clouds over it. There are usually clouds just off the coast and clouds just to the right inland but none over ATACAMA.
ReplyDeleteI first noticed this while watching for hurricanes. NOAA is a great resource for that. Plus it has an interesting anagram.
I heard PACHINKO machines before I ever saw them. We were exploring one of the districts in Tokyo when we heard a tinkling sound off in the distance that was kind of like parts of Balinese gamelan music. We followed the sound until we came upon a bunch PACHINKO machines. They were open to the street and appeared to be completely mechanical. (This was the mid 80s) The player flipped a steel ball up to the top and then it fell into to an array metal pins and took what looked like a completely random path downward. Each time the ball hit a pin, which it did many times, there was a distinct ringing sound. There were maybe a dozen machines and the overall sound was amazing. That was my first and last PACHINKO experience.
Hey all ---
ReplyDeleteI am stopping by for the first time in SEVERAL YEARS to say I HATED this puzzle! Several years worth of hate!
I spent the day intermittently trying to solve downs-only. Some success, but not enough. Eventually I retrieve my clipping of the acrosses & tape it back into place.
It barely helps. I come up with 7 letters + an unknown (Hebrew Bible not my strength) to read .... how?? Left-to-right? Clockwise? Starting at the "O" at the bottom (where the path leads to)? Who knows. I couldn't even come up with any plausible anagrams.
So I come here to learn the answer and discover that my first margin note "PACHi?NKO" was correct.
I am not the OED, but I do not have a tiny vocabulary either. PACHINKO???
OK, signing off until the next terrible Sunday.
Hope you've all been well >>>---> Lindsay
@Z
ReplyDeleteNo heads-up about tomorrow's puzzle because of the way it's clued. 😂
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete@JC66 - -🤣⛵️🚤😂-
ReplyDeleteI waited and waited hoping that someone will mention this, but apparently everyone here does agree that "gnu" rhymes with "zoo". Or do you? Once again, rhymes require same last consonants. What we see here is called assonance. At best it is considered being a "weak rhyme". So I conclude: we have a weak clue at best.
ReplyDeletespeaking of the ATACAMA, 'How the Universe Works' is currently running a 3 hour compilation episode, 'The Cosmic Web'. the last hour is on now, and the Atacama LMA (telescope array) is referenced, with video. it looks a bit like a wind farm, just of radio telescopes. you can get it when it re-runs. science porn of the first order.
ReplyDeleteI bought two pachinko machines at Sears (Hicksville) in the early '70's. Highly addictive and noisy. I still have them in the basement, though not set up to play. Have not used them in over 30 years.
ReplyDeleteHow do rods cast lots?
ReplyDeleteA fisherman uses his/her (fishing) rod lots (often) to cast for fish.
ReplyDeleteThank you
DeleteGO TANDEM
ReplyDeleteI’MLIKE, OH,LOOK AT NAOMI,
THAT’SABIGIF THAT SHE’ll call;
ALLIASK is THAT SHE PHONE_ME,
I SWEAR we’ll PARTY and BALL.
--- ELWOOD “GOOBER” ORWELL
My original thought was "What a duckbilled platypus of a puzzle this is!" Looked like a bunch of tuning forks. There were circles, and stand-alone squares, and...a royal mess. And, like four different revealers. Plus some opaque cluing, including a few PPP nightmares.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I persevered, shooting that ball down the puzzle's throat, and--of course!--missing all the cups. Story of my life. Once I spelled out those orphan letters, though, it sorta came a little more together.
I had no idea about ATP either, but luckily I knew the ATACAMA Desert, though from where I can't recall. Tatum ONEAL for DOD. Birdie.